Lincoln Public Library Celebrates Langston Hughes with Poetry Reading

[March 05, 2024] 

Leap Day coincided with poetry at Lincoln Public Library’s first annual Langston Hughes poetry reading in observance of Black History month, co-sponsored by the Diversity and Inclusion Commission of Lincoln.

Over two dozen members of the community gathered in the Scully Reading Room of the Carnegie building to learn about Hughes’ life and to enjoy his work read aloud. The Reading Room was decorated with Hughes’ books, laminated copies of his poems, and stickers featuring famous lines of his poetry for participants to take home.

Adam Quine, Diversity and Inclusion Commission member and pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, welcomed the audience and introduced other Commission members, Eric Struck, Jennifer Hunt, and Sam Downs. Quine gave some history of Hughes and reminded the audience of Hughes' connection to Lincoln; as a student at Central School, Hughes wrote his first poem. (A historical marker featuring his poem is posted at the corner of Union and 8th Streets). Quine then opened the floor to anyone who wanted to read a favorite Hughes poem. Eric Struck of the Diversity and Inclusion Commission began with “Junior Addict.” Audience member Elaine Knight, retired District 27 librarian, then volunteered to read her favorite Hughes poem, “Mother to Son.” She said it was from “the best children’s poetry book” and “speaks to the strength of mothers, the power of mothers, and the strength of mothers in raising children.”

Other audience members volunteered to read other poems including “Harlem” which features the famous opening line, “What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” from which the Broadway play “A Raisin in the Sun” takes its name.

Another poem read by an audience member was “Birmingham Sunday” about the four girls killed by bombs planted by Ku Klux Klan members in 1963 at 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama. Quine took an opportunity to talk about Hughes’ influence on Black Liberation Theology and on other well-known theologians. Quine said that Hughes was the favorite poet of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a still-popular German theologian, who resisted the Third Reich and ultimately was executed in a concentration camp for helping to plot an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler.

Other Hughes poems read by audience members included “I Look at the World” and “Our Land,” and Commission member Jennifer Hunt read one of her favorites, “Harlem Sweeties.”

Lincoln Public Library librarian Ashley Ried volunteered to read a final poem and also shared some of what she had learned preparing for the evening’s event. She said that Hughes gave interviews in which he talked about his time living in Lincoln. It was not the worst time of his life, she related, but there were things that Hughes, as an African-American, was not allowed to do. For example, Hughes was not allowed to enter the former movie theater on the courthouse square, the one in the very building that now houses the Lincoln Public Library annex. Ried read “I, Too,” another of Hughes’ famous poems, as the closing poem.

Quine concluded the evening by inviting everyone to the 2nd annual Langston Hughes poetry reading on the last Thursday of February in 2025 with 365 days available for everyone to discover their own favorite Hughes poem to share next time. To learn more about Langston Hughes and read more of his poetry visit: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/
langston-hughes. 

[Stephanie Hall]