The+Weary+Blues2

=Langston Hughes =

="The Weary Blues" =



-a little bit about the author-
 Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. He moved several times from the time he was born. In eighth grade he started to write poetry. Then in high school some of his works were published in the school newspaper. As I can clearly tell by just one of his poems, jazz music had a huge influence on his writing. Soon after he graduated from high school he went to visit his father in Mexico. Once he got there and there was high tension between them. His father wanted him to be an engineer but he wanted to be a writer. Once he sent one of his poems into crisis magazine and they got published, his father finally accepted Langston wanting to be a writer. He was so proud of his son that he agreed to pay for him to go to Columbia for a year. Once he graduated from Columbia he moved to Harlem and became a huge part of the art scene there. With the fact that he wrote a lot of poetry relating to African Americans and jazz music, he started to become better known.



-How he uses imagery-
 On the 9th line, he describes the man who was singing the blues. He says, "...With his ebony hands on each ivory key...". Then in the 3rd line he mentions how he is an African American. So with those two lines you get a picture of a darker man. In other various lines he says how the stool the singer is sitting on, is "rickety" and the piano is old. In line 32 he explains how its getting dark outside, "The stars went out and so did the moon." So with just these couple examples of imagery it is pretty easy to paint a mental picture in your head of what this experience was like for him.



-Why we think the title works-
 The title of the poem is "The Weary Blues". The title does suggest the poems subject. The poem describes listening to a blues musician in Harlem, New York. It's good that the poem goes along with it's title, that way it gives you a little idea of what you would be reading.

-The Genre this poem falls into-
 "The Weary Blues" is a lyric poem. A lyric poem is a poem that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker. A lot of the poem is Langston Hughes expressing the feelings that he gets and things that he experiences at the club.

-Literary Terms-
 On line 6 and 7 he repeats the phrase "He did a lazy sway ....". This is a use of repetition. Another use of repetition is in lines 11 and 16. He says " O Blues!" twice. From lines 19 til 30, the blues artist is singing his song. On lines 26 ad 28, the blues singer repeats " <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">And I can't be satisfied." <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">When an author uses repetition they are trying to really accentuate a phrase or word, or they want to get their point across. Most times the phrase that is repeated is very important.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(238, 23, 102)">-figurative language he uses-
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"><span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">Similes are often used in poems. A simile is when the poet makes a comparison between two different things using words such as: "like","as", or "than". One example i found was "He slept like a rock or a man that's dead." That was on line 35. Personification is also another skill writers use. Personification is when an object or idea(not a human) is given human qualities. When Hughes says " He made that poor piano moan with melody.", he makes it sound like the piano is doing something a human would do. That was on line 10.

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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(63, 235, 15)">-Form of the Poem-
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">The form of “The Weary Blues” is regular. When you read the poem it has a sort of beat that goes with it. Most of the lines in the poem rhyme. If a line rhymes it either rhymes with the line right before or right after it. For example line twelve’s last word is stool and then in line thirteen the last word is fool. Not every line rhymes but most of the do. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"> The lines are separated by the rhyming words. After the words rhyme then it starts a new theme or uses different words to rhyme.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(143, 0, 255)">-Devices of Sound-
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">The words in "The Weary Blues" rhyme frequently. The words that rhyme are the words that are at the end of the sentence. Most of the words that rhyme have the same vowel in them and that makes it assonance which is a traditional rhyme that uses repetition of interval vowel sounds. Not every line rhymes with each other, but it is separated in two or three line sections that rhyme.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(9, 19, 114)">-Mike's Analytical Paragraph-
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"> “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes can be interpreted in many different ways. The way that I interpreted it was a depressed lonely man that only had music. “And I wish that I had died”(927), this quote in the poem shows how upset the man is. A person saying that they want to die or wishing that they were died is a sign of depression. In the quote “Coming from a black man’s soul”(927) it shows how much the man enjoys music and how it is apart of his life. Many different people can interpret “The Weary Blues” in many different ways, but the way that I interpreted it was a lonely man that loves music.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; color: rgb(126, 7, 136)">-Stacy's Analytical Paragraph-
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Poems can have several meanings. The poem "The Weary Blues" means two different things to my partner and me. I can relate to the poem because like the narrator, i love music. When I go to a show, i take in everything around me. I love the atmosphere. Just like how he noticed the piano and the rickety stool. He also repeated some of the words that the blues singer sang. He repeated, "I got the weary blues. And i can't be satisfied. Got the weary blues. And can't be satisfied-I ain't happy no mo' and I wish that I had died." The probably meant he really felt the music and loved the words he was saying. Poems can have multiple meanings and this poem reminds me of someone having a true love for music.

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