Angsty Langtsy

Dear Langston Hughes,

Shut up. You were not a slave so stop talking about it as if you were there; you weren’t. Your poetry is ordinary at best. I don’t mean to offend you (though I don’t care if I do) but does all the world but you and black people bore you? All you can seem to write about is how much life sucks and the pain you are in. Get over it. I hate the fact that you and authors similar to you set the precedent for the feel of black people of the time. Even now people read your work and think that all black people feel the way you do. And they don’t all feel the same way. You make it sound as if there is no hope and that all white people still hate all black people. Your poetry and prose blame all white people for your problems. And I don’t know if you know this but that’s being racist! Because guess what? I’m white but I’m only third generation American so hassle the D.A.R. not me. Thanks.

This bugs me too; half the things you say are completely paradoxical. For example in “I, too, Sing America” you basically say that you want to be a real part of America but then in some of your prose that I read you were all like black people don’t like white people getting up all in their space. You don’t want equality you just want to continue pissing about how being black sucks.

Even minus my bias on the contents of you poetry, you’re just not a very good poet or writer. Your poetry doesn’t make me feel anything. You say that Walt Whitman was an inspiration of yours but your poetry is not similar at all to Whitman’s free verse or rhyme. Your poetry is just a bunch of words and creative use of commas that drags on and on then doesn’t resolve well.

In conclusion, Angsty Langtsy, I don’t like you. : )

All my love and anguish,
Em