Langston Hughes

     Three Songs About Lynching is my favorite set of poems by Langston Hughes in this anthology. For one, the poems are set to music that actually add to the poem being presented. They also contain a complexity that is suprising due to their brevity. My favorite example of the three is Flight. It is my favorite due to the use of couplets. The couplet is traditionally comprised of two lines that rhyme and our most well known examples are Shakespeare's love sonnets. This poem uses couplets in a different way. The first two lines have a soothing, inviting feel and then the tone completely changes to a tone of frenzy. In the next two lines we learn the reason he is running; the man is being accused of rape. Lines seven and eight reveal that whether the man is right or wrong he must run or be hanged. The poem points out the injustice black men suffered and shows the struggle between peace and terror in its contrasting couplets.