In his blues poetry Langston Hughes captures the mood, the feel, and the spirit of the blues; his poems have the rhythm and the impact of the musical form they incorporate. Indeed, the blues poems of Langston Hughes are blues as well as poetry….

[The] blues reflects the trials and tribulations of the Negro in America on a secular level, much as the spirituals do on the religious level. Both expressions are, certainly, necessary releases. In one of his "Blues for Men" poems in Shakespeare in Harlem …, Hughes dramatizes the necessity for this release…. [In "In a Troubled Key"] we see the blues maker turning his despair into song instead of into murder, and, one has the feeling that the mood of the blues is often one step away from death—either murder or suicide—and that the presence of the blues form makes it possible for the anguished one to direct his sorrow inward into song and find happiness in the release. (p. 140)

The blues … is an integral part of Black American culture. It is fitting that one of America's greatest poets chose this form to express himself in so many poems.

While Langston Hughes certainly did not limit himself to any one form or subject, his concern with the common man—the source of the blues—makes his use of the blues form especially "right." There seems to be a real marriage of artist and creation in the blues that this man composed. That Hughes was interested, vitally interested, in the plight of the common man is evident in his other works as well. His choice of Jesse B. Semple as his spokesman from Harlem clearly reflects Hughes's love of the common folk. (p. 141)

So, the man and the form are right for each other. The blues offered to Hughes a format in which to express his interest in the common folks and their problems, and the poet brought to the form a sensitive ability to create within its limits…. [The] simplistic, direct nature of the blues form [gives strength and effectiveness to the blues poetry of Langston Hughes]. And, while the blues poet cannot twist and turn the lyrics to fit a mood and tempo as a blues singer can, if he is good—and Hughes is—he can overcome this handicap by his artistic ability as a poet.

The blues, as any art form, has definite patterns which are adhered to in its composition. In another introductory "Note on Blues," [in Fine Clothes to the Jew] …, Hughes gives us the most common pattern:

The Blues, unlike the Spirituals, have a strict poetic pattern: one long line repeated and a third line to rhyme with the first two. Sometimes the second line in repetition is slightly changed and sometimes, but very seldom, it is omitted.

In order to maintain a closer semblance to poetic form, Hughes breaks the first two lines into two lines each and also divides the final line, creating a six-line stanza. (pp. 141-42)

[In some poems] the repeated first line has dropped a word, and the repeated second line has changed by dropping one word and adding others in its place. This changing of lines helps keep the flow of the poem going, without ruining the effectiveness of the repetition.

Another fairly common form of the blues stanza, and one which Hughes uses now and then, is a simple four-line stanza in a rhyme scheme of a-b-c-b. "Reasons Why" from The Dream Keeper is in this form…. (p. 142)

As with any poetic style, the blues' form is directly related to its content. Although what a particular blues is about may vary from blues to blues, the basic content of the blues usually has to do with some form of disappointment, most commonly in love, but also in other areas of life—or maybe in just plain living…. [Yet the blues also contain] an essence that is found in almost every facet of Black American expression: the duality of laughing and crying at the same time or, as Hughes says it, "laughing to keep from crying." Laughing at trouble is a concept we may all try to adopt at one time or another, but Black American writers have wrought this fine ability into a grand motif that consistently runs through their works; and Langston Hughes is certainly qualified as an artist in weaving this quality into his poetry and other works.

As mentioned earlier, the problem of a broken romance—for one reason or another—dominates the thematic scheme of the blues, and Hughes makes use of that theme in several of his blues poems. (pp. 142-43)

An extensive treatment of the man's side of the lost-love blues is found in the "Seven Moments of Love" section of Shakespeare in Harlem, which Hughes subtitled "An Un-Sonnet Sequence in Blues." This is a progressive series of seven poems dealing with a man's state of mind after his woman has left him…. Throughout this series of poems Hughes manages to maintain a sense of identity in the singer of the blues and keeps at work a progression that ties together all seven poems very neatly.

An interesting stanzaic variation occurs in another "Blues for Men" poem from Shakespeare in Harlem, "Only Woman Blues." In this poem the first four lines of each stanza are different; there is not the repetition that is common in the blues stanza. Instead, Hughes uses the same last two lines for each stanza…. In this form Hughes retains the usefulness of the repeated line, but he frees himself in the first four lines and is able to expand the thought of the blues beyond the restrictive pattern normally used. (p. 143)

[In "Early Evening Quarrel," form again reflects content as a man and woman argue.] Leaving the more common blues stanza, Hughes hastens the argument along by switching to an a-b-c-b stanza for Hattie's reply…. By changing to the shorter form in his later stanzas, Hughes is able to keep up the staccato pace of his arguing couple and still make use of a blues format. This is one of the most original uses of the blues form in Hughes's works. (p. 145)

Humor dominates in a few of the blues poems of Langston Hughes. "Crowing-Hen Blues" … is a blues that is also pure folk humor. (p. 147)

In addition to the more common subjects for blues that Hughes makes use of in his poetry, he also uses other, less common, subjects. A natural disaster would most likely find its way into a blues or a folk ballad, and Hughes took a terrible flooding of the Mississippi as the subject for his "Mississippi Levee."…

Finally, the blues themselves serve as the subject for some of the blues written by Langston Hughes, and the best single example of this type of poem is the title poem from The Weary Blues. In this poem, Hughes sets up a "frame" wherein he recalls the performance of a blues singer-pianist "on Lenox Avenue the other night."… (p. 148)

The blues poetry of Langston Hughes, then, has a great deal to offer. Within this limited source of Hughes's creativity alone, we confront many of the themes that he develops more fully in other works. Loneliness, despair, frustration, and a nameless sense of longing are all represented in the blues poetry; and, these themes dominate not only the works of Hughes but also those of most Black American writers.

What direction Hughes's poetry of the blues might have taken thematically were he writing today is hinted at in the one traditional-form blues included in his last collection of verse, The Panther and The Lash …, "The Backlash Blues." Once again Hughes underscores his concern with the social plight of the Black man in America in this poem…. While the blues traditionally have not concerned themselves directly with sociopolitical problems, and while Hughes follows this tradition fairly closely in his blues poetry, one sees in this, his final published blues poem the potential that Hughes might have developed in light of today's Black Power movement. (pp. 148-49)

At any rate the blues poems we do have from this gifted poet illustrate quite well the effectiveness of this great American art form—even though his blues are read and not sung. Indeed, Hughes's sensitive reproduction of the language of the blues, which is the language of the common man/blues maker, and his ability to recreate the rhythmic effect of a sung blues make it difficult not to sing, however softly, the blues of Langston Hughes. (p. 149)