The Weary Blues (AmazonClassics Edition)

By: Langston Hughes

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Length: 48 mins

Publisher's summary

2022 SOVAS Award Winner for Best Voiceover Audiobook Narration—Classics

Langston Hughes was only twenty-four when he published his debut collection of poetry, The Weary Blues. The poems included here blend vernacular speech and musical rhythms to offer a bracing perspective on the African American experience. Traversing a wide range of settings—including the jazz clubs of Harlem, expansive natural landscapes, and seaside taverns—Hughes’s voice as a poet ties these various places together. The collection’s themes are equally wide-ranging: Hughes explores the depth of the soul in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” the pain of endurance in “Mother to Son,” and death in the title poem’s haunting requiem for a weary blues singer. Taken together, these poems offer a singular expression of joy, pride, and anguish from one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance.

Revised edition: Previously published as The Weary Blues, this edition of The Weary Blues (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

Public Domain (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Dion Graham's deep, melodious voice and natural sense of story give this classic book of Hughes's early poems a revelatory power. His sense of timing, clear timbre, and syncopated cadence elevate this remarkably diverse collection. Voicing the poet's jazz style, Graham smartly hooks onto Hughes's musicality: notably in the jazzy 'Harlem Nightclub,' rhythmic 'Song for a Banjo Dance,' and in the dark ennui of the title poem.... Written in an often intimate tone, read with measured power and empathy, the audiobook ends too soon.” (AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner)

Finally!

This is fifteen words. Alexa. This is fifteen words. Did you know fifteen words word

Great collection of poems, quick read

I don’t typically read poetry because it’s not my particular cup of tea. I’m drawn more to fictional stories and some nonfiction as well; poetry just hasn’t resonated with me as much. However, I do have an appreciation for the author’s writing style and skill. The poems are not overly cryptic or ones that require an English degree to interpret. I would recommend this to anybody who is looking to read more poetry or is just getting started with poetry.

Hidden Gem

The boring schoolbook cover doesn’t do this little treasure justice. The poems run the gamut from ones evocative of a specific time & place to ones that transcend boundaries and labels. Both the book and the individual poems are short enough not to get overwhelmed or bogged down. I was delighted to discover some old favorites in here I had forgotten were Langston Hughes! Dion Graham’s narration demonstrates how potent it is to hear, & not only read, poetry

Jazzy

Langston Hughes has become my favorite poet from this collection alone. The narrator did an excellent job bringing the words to life.

Unheard poems and stories In

A look into life of Black people through the eyes of a black man. These stories real blues! That’s what makes them soul stirring for me

Phenomenal In Every Way

This is perfection personified. I loved every second of this collection, and the narration amplified this experience in the best way.

Soundscapes, Landscapes, Seascapes and, most of all, Soulscapes.

All of these are laid out in this first collection of Langston Hughes’ poems. This World as seen by a young Man feeling his Blackness in the River of Blood flowing in his veins, in the Pain inflicted upon him by those Beautiful Pale Faces; but also in the Wonders of Land and Sea, the Raw Rhythms of The Blues playing in a Harlem Honky-Tonk, the seductive eyes of the Whores in a Waterfront dive, and the warm bosoms of Mothers and Aunts.

This brief but somehow comprehensive expression of a young Black Man’s Art is a precursor of the Genius of his later work. Witness his Epilogue:

I Too . . .

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,

But I laugh,
And eat well, 
And grow strong.

Tomorrow, 
I'll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
'Eat in the kitchen,' then. 

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed,--

I, too, am America. 

Beautiful and inspirational!

Beautiful and inspirational! I listened with the Kindle version. It was a wonderful experience. Love!

Great First Collection

The Weary Blues is Langston Hughes first collection of poems. It contains many classics that I did not realize came from this book. I enjoyed the jazzy, syncopated rhythm of the narrator as I read the Kindle version. I will return to this collection again. I highly recommend it.