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The poems Hughes wrote celebrated the experience of invisible men and women: of slaves who \"rushed the boots of Washington\"; of musicians on Lenox Avenue; of the poor and the lovesick; of losers in \"the raffle of night.\" They conveyed that experience in a voice that blended the spoken with the sung, that turned poetic lines into the phrases of jazz and blues, and that ripped through the curtain separating high from popular culture. They spanned the range from the lyric to the polemic, ringing out \"wonder and pain and terror—and the marrow of the bone of life.\" The collection includes \"The Negro Speaks of Rivers,\" \"The Weary Blues,\" \"Still Here,\" \"Song for a Dark Girl,\" \"Montage of a Dream Deferred,\" and \"Refugee in America.\" It gives us a poet of extraordinary range, directness, and stylistic virtuosity.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780679728184","publication_date":"19900912","publisher":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","slug":"selected-poems-of-langston-hughes","subtitle":"A Classic Collection of Poems by a Master of American Verse","title":"Selected Poems of Langston Hughes"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"POE005050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African American Poetry","score":0.771,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LCO002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African American Literary Collections","score":0.77,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE005010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"American Poetry","score":0.7632,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"POE005050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African American Poetry","score":0.771,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LCO002010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African American Literary Collections","score":0.77,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE005010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"American Poetry","score":0.7632,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"POE005050","confidence_band":"high","label":"African American Poetry","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POE023010","confidence_band":"high","label":"Poetry About Death","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POE023040","confidence_band":"high","label":"Place Poetry","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"African American Poetry","score":0.771,"slug":"african-american-poetry"},{"label":"African American Literary Collections","score":0.77,"slug":"african-american-literary-collections"},{"label":"American Poetry","score":0.7632,"slug":"american-poetry"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in poetry shaped by jazz and blues","Readers seeking poems about Black American experience"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Langston Hughes","Arnold Rampersad"],"book_id":"9780679764083","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780679764083.jpg?v=aa61dd1a6d3583c2","score":0.9169,"title":"The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780679764083"},{"authors":["Langston Hughes"],"book_id":"9780486849010","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780486849010.jpg?v=86fe35d42ae82bd6","score":0.7971,"title":"The Weary Blues","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780486849010"},{"authors":["Billy Merrell"],"book_id":"9780593658543","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593658543.jpg?v=998aa765afdad873","score":0.7956,"title":"Who Was Langston Hughes?","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593658543"},{"authors":["Gwendolyn Brooks"],"book_id":"9780060882969","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780060882969.jpg?v=5bade9624d1ccf15","score":0.7334,"title":"Selected Poems","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780060882969"},{"authors":["Langston Hughes"],"book_id":"9780809015498","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780809015498.jpg?v=0ffb946c584e9db0","score":0.7282,"title":"The Big Sea","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780809015498"},{"authors":["James Baldwin"],"book_id":"9780807084861","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780807084861.jpg?v=a49aa5d01083b780","score":0.6983,"title":"Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780807084861"},{"authors":["J. 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