Poem: Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes
Contemporary Poet Response
I hear you laugh
I hear you sing
Oh, how could I know
Your soul cried within?
I too dance
I too sing
But can’t you see
That I too
Hold great pain within?
Both blinded by pain
Both dying inside
I can see now that you hurt
I can understand now why you cry
Your pain like a reflection of mine!
I chose to respond to Hughes poem by writing a poem of my own. When writing my own poem I was not precisely focusing on the structure of the poem, though I did try to resemble Hughes’. I was especially astounded by the brevity of his poem, his economy of words. But though simple, his words were powerful and I wanted my poem to do the same. My main focus was, however, the messages Hughes was trying to send. When I first read this poem I felt as if I knew exactly the pain he talked about. In my poem I wanted him to know that he is not alone, not the only one who lives burdened. The poem I wrote as a response to Hughes’ is not a defiance to his remarks, but simply a reminder that just like him many other have been forced to hide their pain too.
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1 comment:
INGRID! i really like your remake of your poem, and i can totally see it in you, or how you can relate to this poem, like anytime something goes wrong, you go off and hide it. it's things like that that make me wonder why people do that, like why is it so hard to let people know how you're REALLY feeling? is there something wrong with it? there shouldn't be, because we all can experience the same emotions, but we all want to hide them as if they don't exist and there has to be some point in which we can lose all that fear and just let loose.
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