One hundred years after his birth, black poet Langston Hughes’ popularity has never been higher. By now he is easily the most revered black poet America has produced.

A descendant of abolitionists, Hughes not only was recognized as a major poet of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, but also found success as a fiction writer, author of children’s books, dramatist, journalist and librettist.

I first met Hughes in 1945, when he arrived at my grammar school, P.S. 23 in the Bronx. Hughes had been invited to our assembly to read some of his poetry by my teacher, Miss Aenid Dottin Anthonyson.

Ms. Anthonyson prepped us before his arrival, convincing us that each of us could achieve like Hughes if we were willing to do the work. Hughes stood at center stage and read, with great joy and confidence, many of the lines from his book “The Dream Keeper.” I was immediately enthralled by his words. Afterward, I tried to emulate his writing.

After reading two of my best efforts, he informed me that I would never earn my living writing poetry. Still, we became friends, and he encouraged me to work for newspapers because, he said, I possessed perseverance, an essential tool of journalism. It was Hughes who planted the seed in my 9-year-old mind to become a writer.

I enjoyed the privilege, along with several classmates, of visiting Hughes’ Harlem home to listen to his readings and to harmonize as his aunt, Toy Harper, played a rollicking piano that got all the kids singing and learning the value of words.

Throughout my young life, I remained in touch with Hughes, who sent me three autographed volumes of his poetry, which I continue to count among my most valued possessions. I was in touch with him until his death in 1967. Hughes’ life has been ably celebrated by Arnold Rampersad, a noted biographer, who taught us far more about this princely poet than most of us ever knew.

Sometimes I try to determine which poem is my favorite. But he was such a consistently fine poet that it is nearly impossible to choose a single poem over all his others. Hughes’ magic was his surprising depth and disarming simplicity. He wrote with irony, pathos and often with great joy and humor. His stories and poems feature characters based on people he met on street corners and in bars, theaters and restaurants. Meet one of them: Madam Johnson, Alberta K. in this poem from “One-Way Ticket,” first published in 1936:

Madam’s Calling Cards

I had some cards printed

The other day.

They cost me more

Than I wanted to pay.

I told the man

I wasn’t no mint,

But I hankered to see

My name in print.

MADAM JOHNSON,

ALBERTA K.

He said, Your name looks good

Madam’d that way.

Shall I use Old English

Or a Roman letter?

I said, Use American.

American’s better.

There’s nothing foreign

To my pedigree:

Alberta K. Johnson

American that’s me.

If Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. loosed blacks from their mental shackles, it was Langston Hughes who revealed their nobility, as is reflected in “Dreams,” written in 1932.

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.”

On April 9, the teacher who introduced me to Hughes all those years ago died in retirement in New London, N.H., at age 91. On the day of her death, I received in the mail a final note from her. Its subject: Langston Hughes.