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Written & performed by Langston Hughes - Selected Unabridged Fiction - 1 CASSETTE

Publisher, Harper/Caedmon Audio (April 2000)

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A Rare and Exceptional Recording of Langston Hughes Reading His Own Poetry.

"Hughes is charming and conversational. He speaks to the microphone as if he's sitting in a chair across from a friend and telling his stories." --Philadelphia Inquirer

"The Hughes recording is successful because it intersperses his poems throughout several conversations with him about his work. So listeners get not only some top-notch poetry...plus some charming and fascinating stories" --Chicago Tribune

"Langston Hughes belongs to whoever is listening. A possession in common, like the sights and sounds of a streetcorner hangout or the barbershop debate over pretty girls' legs and baseball players; open your ears and your heart if you've got one, Langston will walk right in and do the rest. Always public, his poems have no front door; not fully alive in the unspoken state; never quite satisfied unless they are talking to somebody. His thoughts come naked, conceived in the open only at home in the public domain. Free, without charge, like water, like air--like salted peanuts at a Harlem rent party. Come in, have one on me--that's Langston's style; a great host; a perfect bartender; profligate--not of pigs' feet but of poetry--dishing it up, iambic pentameter, on the rocks and on the house, fresh wrote this morning. Dead now, but still alive. Ol' Langston in the corners of my mind." --Ossie Davis

Contents:

One Way Ticket
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Puzzled
Trumpet Player
Ballad of the Gypsy
Kid Sleepy
Southern Mammy Songs
Migrant
Mama and Daughter
Sylvester's Dying Bed
Intern at Provident Hospital
Merry-Go-Round
Ku Klux Klan
The South
Mulatto
Out of Work
The Explanation of Our Times
Dinner Guest: Me

Cultural Exchange - This recording also includes rare commentary and reflections from the author.

About the Author: Langston Hughes (1902-1967) ranks as one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century. A landmark figure in the Harlem Renaissance, his work profoundly captures and celebrates the trials and triumphs of his exquisitely drawn characters. In addition to his poetry, he was also the author of the novels Now Without Laughter and Something in Common, the play Mulatto, and two volumes of autobiography.