![]() ![]() ![]() The speaker of the poem asks a series of questions. The poem is arranged into four stanzas: the first and last of these are just one line long, with the second comprising seven lines and the third two lines. Is this really true of African Americans, or do they face too much prejudice and too many obstacles as they try to make their way in America? ![]() This short poem is one of his best-known, and takes up the idea of the American Dream: the ideal, or belief, which states that anyone, regardless of their background, can make a success of their lives if they come to America. It’s another poem that bears the influence of Whitman, though Hughes does something very different with the expansive free verse style he learned from that nineteenth-century American verse pioneer. One day, as Hughes was travelling on a train that crossed over the Mississippi River, the idea of a poem was born, and it was published a year later, in 1921. ![]()
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