I read The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes last week with my mom. It was really interesting to peel away the different layers of it and figure out what he was really saying.

In The Negro Speaks of Rivers, the first thing you notice is the title (obviously this would be the only thing that you would notice, seeing as how it's the only thing I've given you so far). The title implies that this is going to be a shallow, undeveloped poem written by someone who was hardly literate, if you go with the stereotypes of the time this was written. It's rather self-deprecating, actually. But after you pass the title and go on into the actual poem, you find that it's incredibly intellectual and very deep, exploring many different topics. It's also a slap in the face to white supremacists, and it's kind of interesting to try to find all the jabs.

The poem starts out saying that 'I' (in this case, a black man) have been around since the beginning of civilization and 'bathed in the Euphrates'. The Euphrates and the Tigris were the two rivers that framed Mesopotamia, or the 'Cradle of Civilization'. Man was around before that, but Mesopotamians were the first civilized farmers, who built cities and lived life like it is lived today, without iPads and touch-screen technology. Because the racists whites' opinion was generally that blacks were rowdy and uncivilized, this is kind of saying, "well, you know what? I'm way more civilized than you. I was civilized when you were still hunter-gatherers, hunting bison with rocks."

It then goes on to say that the black man 'built his hut near the Congo' and 'raised pyramids above...the Nile', which was one of the most amazing feats of man ever. Imagine what it would've taken to make those pyramids without machines, only manpower. Another reminder that it was the black man who did that and not the whites.

After that it talks about the 'muddy Mississippi...when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans', and I take that to mean controversy. I also think that it meant that although Abe Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, it would take a long time for the dust to settle and for the blacks to be treated as normal people, as equals to the whites. I think that the 'singing of the Mississippi' implies that it was a happy time when Lincoln came down and signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers is an amazing poem written with a deft, artistic hand. Langston Hughes created a masterpiece in Speaks of Rivers, one that has many hidden secrets that we are still unlocking today, and some that we may never figure out. I had a lot of fun reading the poem and will read it again sometime.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers, by Langston Hughes:

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the      

flow of human blood in human veins.  

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.  

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. 

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. 

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. 

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln       

went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy      

bosom turn all golden in the sunset.  

I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.  

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.