Did you know that, Langston Hughes has the distinction of being at the top of the list of the most popular historical poets? This little gem was discovered on the Academy of American Poets website, which keeps a list of the most popular contemporary and historical poets. Known for his poetry, Hughes wrote the celebrated holiday play Black Nativity that will be honored for its 50th anniversary this year.
Hughes’ poetry and dramatic talents will be “on stage” in a unique collaboration between the Seattle Public Library and the Seattle Theatre Group. Poems at Play: a Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Black Nativity is a two-part program beginning on Saturday, October 8 at 2PM at the Douglass-Truth library. Poets from YouthSpeaks, a program of Arts Corps, will read from Hughes poetry and works written to honor the poet/playwright. Excerpts from Black Nativity will be presented at the Central Library on Saturday, November 12 at 2PM. Director Jackie Moscou, music director Pat Wright and Hughes scholar Hans Ostrom will read Hughes poetry and discuss his legacy.
While compiling writings by and about the writer for the list Langston Hughes: A Resource List, I began to wonder what other writers extended their literary reach by composing poems and developing plays. The selected results, dear reader, follow.
It is an eclectic list, for sure. One that was compiled with an eye for a poetic line masquerading as a title! Take, for instance, Sonia Sanchez’s I’m Black When I’m Singing and Blue When I Ain’t and Other Plays. See what I mean? Her collection of haiku is as short, sweet and compact as the form being simply titled, Morning Haiku. Surely, Joyce Carol Oates delivers perfect lines in The Perfectionist and Other Plays. She takes the edge off, however, with the poetry collection Tenderness. Clearly, the poetic was dispensed with when an editor decided upon T.S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950. The same goes for Dylan Thomas’ Complete Screenplays and The Poems of Dylan Thomas. Robert Penn Warren’s pairing begins with promise. His stage version of All the Kings Men evokes a certain curiosity. Just, who are they these men beholden to the king? (The play was adapted from his famous novel, itself adapted from an earlier verse play titled Proud Flesh). But then, The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren is, well, so matter-of-fact, leaving nothing to the imagination unless you are, already, deeply familiar with the poet’s work. That’s why Derek Walcott’s elegantly titled play, Remembrance & Pantomime sets a mind right and prepares it for flight with his collection of poetry, White Egrets.
Two poets who have taken poetry to dramatic levels of performance include Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls. Shange coined the term “choreopoem” to describe a work in which poems are staged and performers deliver lines that stride off pages to, literally, dance. Like Hughes, her literary output continues to stand the test of time. On a different note, Rita Dove’s Sonata Mulattica: a Life in Five Movements and a Short Play is another example of how a writer stretches the borders of a genre. This collection of poems re-imagines the life of George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, a violin virtuoso. Notably, Beethoven composes and dedicates a sonata to the Afro-Polish Wunderkind. A quarrel, however, between Bridgetower and Beethoven over a woman severs their ties and thus, the true inspiration of the work becomes lost in time. Smack dab in the middle of the book, on page 125 to be exact, the reader runs into a playscript of several scenes. Without missing a beat, Dove returns to the poetic sequencing of Bridgewater’s life.
So, now you know. Well, at least, have an idea of what’s possible to explore in the works of poets who cast lines across the stage of life making them bow and bend until they come to their fine end.
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