BLUES IN STEREO | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Dec 4, 2024 6:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Dec 4, 2024 6:00 pm
14th & V
From Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works--both polished poems and raw, unfinished, work-in-progress written from 1921-1927--curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith.
Before Langston Hughes and his literary prowess became synonymous with American poetry, he was an eighteen-year-old on a train to Mexico City, seeking funds to pursue his passion. His early poems see Hughes finding his voice and experimenting with style and form. Beloved verses like "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," were written without formal training, often on the back of napkins and envelopes, and were inspired by the sights and sounds of Black working-class people he encountered in his early life.
BLUES IN STEREO is a collection of select early works, all written before the age of twenty-five, in which we see Langston Hughes with fresh eyes. From the intimate pages of his handwritten journals, you will travel with Hughes outside of Harlem as he ventures to the American South and Mexico, sails through the Caribbean, and becomes the only Harlem renaissance poet to visit Africa. His poems and journal entries celebrate love as a tool of liberation. His songs showcase the musicality of verse poetry. And the collection even includes a play he cowrote with Duke Ellington with a full score that experiments with rhythm and structure.
This collection portrays a young man coming of age in a changing world. Page by page, a young, fresh-faced Hughes contends with matters beyond his years with raw talent. And by keeping his original, handwritten notations found in archival material, we get to witness a genius's earliest thought process in real time. National Book Award-nominated poet Danez Smith offers their insight and notes on themes, challenges, and obsessions that Hughes early work contains. Beautifully rendered and thoughtfully curated, BLUES IN STEREO foreshadows a master poet that will go on to define literature for centuries to come.
Danez Smith is joining us on the Busboys stage to share more about this stunning collection and dive deeper into Langston Hughes’ poetry, understanding “the great poet he would become for the young genius he was” (Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Tradition and editor of How We Do It). Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Smith will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of BLUES IN STEREO will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Danez Smith (they/them) is the author of four poetry collections including Bluff, Homie and Don't Call Us Dead. Danez has won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and has been a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. Danez lives in Minneapolis with their people.
