Langston Hughes
L- Is for the LOVE Langston had for his grandmother.
A- Is for how AWFUL his dad was.
N- Is for NEVER forgetting his grandmother after her death.
G- Is for GOING places all over the world.
S- Is for the SPINGARN where he won $40.00.
T- Is for the TIME Langston spent writing his poems.
O- Is for the OMENS when he was in Mexico.
N- Is for Never ending his poems.

H- Is for the HATE that is father had for white people.
U- IS for USING his money to help the family.
G- Is for the GUGGENHEIM money.
E- Is for Langston’s EMOTIONS.
S- Is for SHARING his life with the world.
-Estella M. Safford, CJHS

Langston Hughes
L-is for the LICORICE joke his teacher made about him when he was younger.
A-is for ANGER and rage his father had inside.
N-is for the word NIGER his father loved to use so much.
G-is for his GRANDMOTHER named Mary who had put such a “print’ on his life.
S-is for the SURPRISES he had in his life.
T-is for the TIME he took out of his life to take care of Kit.
O-is for the “OPPONENTS” he had to face in his life.
N-is for the semi-NEGLECT his father showed him.

H-is for the HAPPINESS his Grandmother Mary showed him.
U-is for the UNIVERSITIES he went to and was involved with.
G-is for the Gratefulness his grandmother showed he should have.
H-is for the HELP he showed so many in his poems.
E-is for the EFFORT he put into all of his poems.
S-is for the SIGNIFICANT things he had in his poems and life.
-Jacquelin D. Northern, CJHS

COLOR BLIND
A Color
Why does it mean so much?
Why should it claim lives?
In a perfect world, we’d all
Be color blind
So we couldn’t attempt
To defend
A color
A color that means nothing
To us personally,
but so much to those who
Are already dead.
Let us all represent ourselves, instead of
A color.
A color that can kill you
A color that can leave your
child fatherless
A color that can crush the
lives of so many
All because you decided to represent
A color.
-Michael Landsness, CJHS

The Missing Piece
Sometime when I’m lonely,
Sometime when I’m lost,
When I’m looking for someone to talk to,
I’ll know just what it cost.

I’ll look back on life someday,
And I’ll turn around and say,
“It is such a pity
That life turned out this way.”

That day when I was little,
When I lived in a child’s innocence,
Someone told me “you and I” instead of “we”,
To me it made no sense.

I’ll look back on life someday,
And I’ll turn around and say,
“It is such a pity
That life turned out this way.”

When I think about my life,
What I have done for this,
There is that one small piece,
The one we all do miss.

That missing piece is simple,
If you think about it good,
It is “we” not “you and I”,
At least that’s what I have understood.
-Aaron Trent, CJHS

The Mountains Fall
Amidst the smoke and fire,
As the sky falls down about us,
All flee away.
And all we can do is pray.

The thunder roars, the fire booms.
The mighty fall about us.
Gray snow floats to up turned faces,
And the cries of birds are silent.

As a whole we weep,
For the dead yet to be found.
No tears are shed,
For what might have been,
But only what might be.
-Megan Larive, CJHS

Langston Variation 1
In the beginning he was lonely.
He couldn’t play with the other boys.
He knew only trains, dandelion greens, and the long colorful stories of true black
Heroes, pouring form the deepest crannies of his grandmothers memory.
Langston loved those stories,
But soon they became hushed.
With his grandmother near mute,
His mother took him in.
They went to live with cousins, friends, and more family constantly.
Langston called himself the “passed around child”.
That is the way he grew up.
In the end he was lonely.
He died alone in a hospital room.
But one thing is for sure,
He was brilliant, and his works will continue to inspire and amaze us.
-Lindsey Kennedy, CJHS

Harlem
Langston loved to travel.
He went to: China, Mexico, Holland, France, and Russia.
But, of all of the places he visited, he like Harlem the most.
Harlem was a place where artists, writers, singers, actors, and poets, of a ll colors
Shapes and races gathered to express their passions.
It was such a vibrant and colorful place.
Langston really felt at home there.
And that is not something he felt very often.
-Lindsey Kennedy, CJHS

Langston was a thoughtful guy
As his poetry shows
And he was brilliant, that the world knows
He really did try
To shine light
On the Black fold’s plight
For their rights he pleaded
And I think he succeeded.
-Amy Bradshaw, CJHS

Sunday Morning!
Come all ye sinners, be saved!
Sir, I don’t see Jesus.
Come on Boy, see Jesus!
No, sir, I don’t see Jesus.
Come on, Come on, don’t be shy.
I don’t wanna, I don’t see him.
Come on!
No, No, I don’t see him.

(The crowd): Be saved, child! Be saved!
Come on, Child. See the glory of God.
See the mercy, the lights.
No, No, I don’t see him.

The church service ends and the
Young boy is still asking, “Where is
Jesus? I never saw him.”
He walks out of the church,
His head hung low.
He walked short of the glory of God and without the
Holy Spirit in his heart.
-Lora Turner, CJHS

The Sounds of Music
the sound of the
music coming form
street corners.
The music echoes
from street to street,
people dance and have fun.
I sit, watch and listen
to the people.
I sit and say to
myself that theses
people and their
music are what
I need to pull my
poetry together.
-Shaunta Stone, CJHS

Variation 1
Dandelions to eat, rent to be paid.
Many more days ahead.
Parents are separated, grandmother is poor.
Many more days ahead.
Hardship, loneliness, moving all the time,
Poor little boy, finding life’s tough so soon.
Poor little thing, we feel so sorry for you.
Just remember,
There’s many more days ahead.
-Elizabeth Bodle, CJHS

Langston Hughes
A man that dreams, that writes of dreams.
A lonely man with many thoughts.
A poor Negro lost in the racism of a world
Without love.
A young boy listening to the sounds of trains,
Rolling along a rusty track.
Stories from a women who is proud
But silenced.
The sour smell of dandelions still in the head
Of a lonely poet.
Langston Hughes

A traveler longing for a better life,
Wanting something more.
Maybe not something he can touch,
Maybe something only he sees.
A loving family, filled with happiness,,
A life that he will never have.
The honey brown of his sweet skin
Once so cherished, now a gateway
To an unfair life.
Trapped inside with no way out.
Longing for his time to be free,
Like everybody else.
Langston Hughes

The weary blues that young man has.
He traveled to let go,
Only to find that his life was changed,
And so starts another poem
This solemn poet writes.
He has known poverty all of his life,
But nothing like what he’s seen here.
In this little village on the island of Haiti
The young poet overcomes those weary blues,
And writes of Negroes everywhere.
Langston Hughes
-Greer Adkins-Heljeson, CJHS

I’ve traveled the world
Africa
Germany
France
Been shunned by my family
Been loved by my friends
Alone
Italy
Holland
Russia
Been poor
Been hungry
Cleveland
Cuba
Haiti
I been mobbed round so much
Nothin’ feels like home
’till Harlem
Sweet Harlem
Where the musicians play
The poets recite
The artists make their canvases come alive
With images of times gone by
And times yet to come
Oh, Harlem,
Sweet Harlem,
My home
-Maggie Hall, CJHS

731 Alabama
My first real home
With Grandma
So loving and Gentle
Wrapped in a bullet riddled shawl
Listening to stories
Of brave Buffalo Soldiers and
Grandpa Leary
Riding with John Brown
Knowing the stories were true
Not fairy tales
Coming from her poor, tired heart
Her sweet, Cherokee heart
Eating nothing but dandelion greens
When the mortgage was due
Two rooms
Two cold, lonely rooms
Poor,
Yet proud
Silent,
Yet strong
Empty of material things
Yet full of love always
-Maggie Hall, CJHS

NO ORDINARY MAN
Langston Hughes was no ordinary man.
Born to inspire.
His smiling face charmed all,
They always knew he’d be a hero
like the black heroes from Grandma’s stories.
Now he was the last.
He had the intelligence to write novels,
Poems, plays, and Jesse B. Simple articles.
He fought hard to prove himself
striving to earn a Lincoln University degree.
He dealt with segregation in his own powerful ways,
“Teacher’s got a Jim Crow row.”
Traveling the world
Citizen of the black capitol of the world, “Harlem.”
Money was everything to his parents.
How to get it didn’t matter,
all they wanted was money,
but Langston proved himself in a writing way.
He followed His dream.
His destiny was laid out on a silver platter
waiting for him to pick it up.
And who created this?
Grandma.
Langston Hughes was no ordinary man.
-Ashley Bryan, CJHS

Just a Man
A man of dreams
A man of hope
Full of stories
Full of hope
He Wondered as he Wandered
With no place forever known as home
A man with nothing but a gift
A man whose words will ring in eternity
He was looked upon as less than a man
He was treated as less than a man
He was treated as less than a man
People took him for how he looked
Different
He made them see what was inside
He showed them that his soul ran deep
He left the world the way he came
Alone
But the world he left was not left untouched
He was just a man
Of dreams
Of hope
-Marshall Rake, CJHS

Langston Hughes
Langston,
Lonely dark face child,
Listen wide eyed,
Of stories
From Grandma
Knowing they were true.
Poor, lived at 731 Alabama St.
Two room
Shunned by a town,
Who now claims him
Having to choke down
His supper of
Dandelion greens.
No family to call his own
Father, left for Mexico,
Mother, trying to make it
As an actress,
Step Father, kept on running,
Half Brother, alcoholic, dropout.
But through it all,
That boy racing to go see the train,
And talk to it,
Kept on believing
And dreaming
Made his life fulfilling.
-Amy Magnuson, CJHS