A Langston Hughes Poem for your Pocket


Today is “Poem in your Pocket” Day! Pockets aren’t just for loose change and gum, but for poems! Below are four short poems by Langston Hughes for you to choose from to write/print and put in your pocket!

Final Curve

When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left.

Homecoming

I went back in the alley
And I opened up my door.
All her clothes was gone:
She wasn’t home no more.

I pulled back the covers,
I made down the bed.
A whole lot of room
Was the only thing I had.

One

Lonely
As the wind
On the Lincoln
Prairies.

Lonely
As a bottle of licker
On a table
All by itself.

Suicide’s Note

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

PHOTO 2024 02 01 07 10 14

For Langston Hughes on His 123 Birthday

Speech given on February 1, 2024 in Havana, Cuba In 1927 Langston Hughes walked into a Cuba amid an emerging community of artists, intellectuals, and radicals.  He saw a “sunrise in a new land [– a day – in his words]sic – full of brownskin surprises, and hitherto unknown contacts in a world of color.”  … Continued

PALESTINE WEEK 1920 x 1080 px 2

Palestine Week 2024

January 18, 2024 – January 25, 2024 In keeping with our ongoing mission of uplifting racial and cultural connections, Busboys and Poets is hosting Palestine Week (January 18 through January 25, 2024). This week-long series of events will offer a diverse range of programming featuring Palestinian food, music, dance, poetry, discussions, and other enriching events. … Continued

7. Cuba – the unveiling of the plaque

Follow along for the Busboys and Poets Travel Tribe’s Cultural Exchange trip to Cuba (July 6-13, 2022) By Andy Shallal (@andyshallal CEO/Founder, Busboys and Poets) Nicolas Guillen’s office overlooks the lush gardens of the Union of Writers and Artists. It is frozen in time. The rotary telephone. The Royal typewriter. Even the original chair and desk. … Continued

On Censorship by Salman Rushdie

On Censorship by Salman Rushdie

No writer ever really wants to talk about censorship. Writers want to talk about creation, and censorship is anti-creation, negative energy, uncreation, the bringing into being of non-being, or, to use Tom Stoppard’s description of death, “the absence of presence.” Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.