Critique #1:Langston Hughes article

Adjoa Ghansah

Rap and Spoken Word (Langston Hughes article)

September 4, 2012

            In the article, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain by Langston Hughes, the main idea was that as an artist, you should not be ashamed of what you write about because you should be writing about what you know, your background and what you have experienced. But some Negro artist back then didn’t want to be called a “Negro poet” just a poet. This was because of the fact that they were middle class Negros and their parents installed in them that being a Negro had nothing good to offer. So of course the artist will not be interested in his own people, nevertheless write about them. Langston also makes it clear that as an artist, you are not supposed be afraid to be who you are and what you stand for.

       To be a true artist, you must write what is in your heart and you must not be afraid to show some kind of emotion. Also a true artist must know his background and acknowledge it. So when that young poet said that he just wants to be a poet and not a Negro poet, that takes away from the purpose of being an articles because he will not be writing about Negros and even when he does, it will probably be about how Negros can’t do nothing right. So he’s basically not acknowledging his people and he is being blinded by what society wants him to write and what society wants him to be and that’s not a true artist. And he could have been a great Negro poet, but instead he is missing out on what his people have to offer him.
         In other words, your race is supposed to be something that you can include in your writing as an artist, but if this young poet is at the bottom of the mountain, meaning he has a long way to go when it comes to finding himself and his race, then he can’t talk about his race and even shed some light on it, instead he is being something that he’s not. Now everything this poet writes will not be unique, but rather commonplace. There is so much that he could have included in his creations that could have made him one of the best, but he is so far down the mountain. And if he had that uniqueness, he would have touched much more people with his writing