Poetry Friday

This poem is from the beautiful book compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins called Lives: Poems About Famous Americans.

I read this poem to my class last week because Langston Hughes is my favorite poet and I love how accessible this poem is. In fact, it's so accessible, that I was checking journals today and a student wrote in her journal after I read this poem to the class that I had changed her mind - she really does like poetry. I absolutely love when that happens!

Dreamer

He let us kiss
the April rain.

He shared his
hope
and pride
and
pain.

He wrote
of life
with an ebon pen
and the world
was never
the same
again.

He syncopated beats
of Harlem-blues.

O!
The might
of Langston Hughes

“Bring me all your dreams, ”
he said.

And though he died…

He
is
not
dead.

-Lee Bennett Hopkins