Langston Hughes
Po’ Boy Blues was written around 1926-1927, which according to The Crisis, was the same time they published the article “The Colored Woman in Industry.” Hughes’ rhyme scheme of AB AB clearly shows that he is suffering from the blues. In this poem he talks about his desire to want to move up north where he can be free considering that was the only area at that time where African Americans could be free. He truly believes that everything will be better once he is free and he can go for his dreams, but as he got there things didn’t turn out as great as he had expected. During this trying time he couldn’t comprehend why things had to be so complicated or why things never turn out for the better for him even though he hasn’t done anything bad to not deserve it. In the headnotes of The Norton Anthology we read that it was assumed he was a gay African American writer so we can imagine how much harder it was for him at that time and the rejection given to him by society certainly did not help. In the last stanza of The Norton Anthology he writes:
“Weary, weary,
Weary early in de morn.
Weary, weary,
Early, early in de morn.
I’s so weary
I wish I’d never been born” (lines 19-24).
He is confused and worried about he is and that he can’t change the person that he is so he’s suffering from the blues and wishes that he had never been born.
In the article I stated earlier, The Crisis, it talks about how colored men were now allowed to join the army. Colored women were also starting to work in the factories and can make a living like the men could.
During this time it was great colored women were finally getting heard and can work together with men and they were okay with that. This was after the war so there were a lot of changes that occurred.
World War I ended in 1919 so Po’ Boy Blues was published just a few years after the first war ended. You could imagine all the things going on and now they were recruiting black men to join the army. As a gay artist it was really tough for him and what he going through. And we can see that he struggled a lot with wanting to move up north to be free but it didn’t work out the way he had planned.
In the end, according to The Crisis, there were a lot of things going on during this time: recruiting black men to the army, women would start working in factories, and the war just ending. I can see how he would be distressed as he wrote his poem, “Po’ Boy Blues.”