Blues and Rivers
The Negro Speaks Of Rivers
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 build 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.
I’ve known rivers: Ancient dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
“Blues In Stereo”. When I saw that title in The Valley Bookseller, I knew I would buy it. I wasn’t disappointed because I found one of my favorite poems, “The Negro Speaks Of Rivers.” I learned from Danez Smith’s introduction that this poem was Langston Hughes’s first published poem, written when he was only 20. It would become his “most famous poem and one of the most monumental works in the American canon.” He wrote it while gazing at the Mississippi River from the window of a train on his way to Mexico.
Hughes expressed what the Mississippi, the Congo, the Niger, and the Nile meant for African Americans in the past. I’m not African American; I’m as white as white can be; I'm not even a lover of poetry. I focus on the riverine aspect of the poem—what it means to me. I grew up in a river town and now live in retirement in another river town. I spent the last dozen years photographing rivers. Below are some of my favorite river photos.
