Langston Hughes (2/16)

In reading Langston Hughes’ poetry I am compelled by his use of imagery and sensory. As a reader, I am drawn into the scene of each poem and I can taste, smell and share the pain of the suffering antagonists he creates in his works. Two poems that draw me in the most are The Bitter River and Suicide’s Note. These two poems, although very different in structure and length, bring forth the same underlying themes of suffering and loss. Water in both instances, is a central subject that represents death, destruction and pain. The water depicted in The Bitter River is much darker and polluted with the poem’s themes of suffering and loss. In the Bitter River, the water is a dirty, unwanted entity that only brings more pain. Langston Hughes personifies the river as the oppressive white race and as racism and segregation when he writes, “I have drunk at that river too long: Dreamer of dreams to be broken, builder of hopes to be smashed” (695). The antagonist sees the river, like segregation, as the root of all evil that has swallowed up and washed away all of the light and happiness in his life.

Going along with this idea, the poem Suicide’s Note also represents an end to life. In this poem however, that water of this river flows clam and invitingly. I am skeptic of this calmness though, because what is not seen in the poem is what has driven the writer of the suicide note to commit suicide. I assume that the same racism, pain and suffering seen in The Bitter River are what have drawn this individual to the river to drown their self. In this sense, despite the calmness, this river is no cleaner or any less bitter than that of the Mississippi which carries the blood of many black people. In drowning their self in the river they are trying to escape all of the pain and suffering, but they are making the water of the river just as bitter as the Mississippi. Suicide like lynching carries very negative and “bitter” connotations.

I find the comparisons between these two poems to be very intriguing and I would like to discuss Suicide Note in class.