February 2, 2012 Blog

Songs Listened to: Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong - When You're Smiling, Duke Ellington - It Don't Mean a Thing.

While reading Hughes' poems, I feel as though his poems are structured purposefully to have the reader immediately
read his poems in a rhythm, making it obvious that Hughes' was heavily influenced by Jazz and Blues music. For example, Hughes' poem "Song for a Dark Girl" show explicitly how Hughes' writes his poems with a major hints of jazz influence because of how the poem gives off a "jazzy" feel to it. It feels as though "Song for a Dark Girl" could be mistaken for lyrics to a blues song because of the rhyme scheme. One example I think is what makes Hughes' poems so close to jazz is how in jazz, many of the jazz singers use stops at the end of every line, just as in Hughes' poems.

With this influence of jazz in Hughes' poems, I believe it gives him a uniqueness that many other poets can not match. His poems have the feel and rhythm of a jazz song and meanings of a deep, thoughtful poem.

-Sean Song