The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Langston Hughes explaining the origin of his poem and then reading it aloud.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Langston
• Hughes

[pearljammingchristy]

This is wonderful! I'm definitely using this in class tomorrow. My students expect a video with every poem we study. This is one of the best -- they'll love it! It'll make understanding the poem much easier for them. THANKS FOR POSTING!

[mjlauria]

Hi Christy,

I'm glad you like it. Thanks for letting me know you can use this for your class. :-)

[marco58amco]

Thanks Mjlauria for that beautiful video. I first read a Hughes poem when I was in college (Theme for English B) and I loved it. Now I'm preparing a lesson about this poem and I'm certainly going to show this video to my students. LOVE, LIVE, LEARN 'n' LAUGH. MAC (from Brazil)

[mshallbms]

Thanks! Using this in my classes tomorrow. 

[guzsaj]

@mandiine69 he explained how he wrote this poem when he was travelling to Mexico to visit his father and while he did he passed the river Mississippi and started to think about what it might have meant to negro slaves, about the role it played in the black history. He noted his poem on the back of his father's letter, which is a bit ironic since his father didn't want him to become a writer. (:

[VDubb08]

This great I think that all afro americans should read this , and they will find answers to quite a few questions

[MccKateness]

Many thanks for posting this audio. Great to use as a revision tool =)

[YetiDeti]

where is the rhyme?

[mistacramer]

@mistacramer

(Continued)

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

[mistacramer]

@mandiine69

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

[mandiine69]

hello could you written all the things that he said in this video. I am french and I dont understant. and i have some question on this video.

[mandiine69]

Helo I'm french and i have some question on this video. But I dont understand all his speaking. could you wrote all the things that he said ?? please ?