The cruelest month: All jive

For Day 2 of National Poetry Month, I give you a taste of Langston Hughes:

Motto

I play it cool

I dig all jive

That's the reason

I stay alive

My motto

As I live and learn

Is dig and be dug in return

There’s a wealth of Hughes I could choose from; but I was introduced to this one in an episode of Law & Order, where the detectives are on a stakeout in an empty apartment. Det. Lennie Briscoe, a true renaissance man when it comes to le bon mot, is playing cards with Lt. Anita Van Buren. He recites the first four lines, with Van Buren completing the poem, with raised eyebrows.

Briscoe explains: quoting Hughes used to work well as a chat-up line “on the Jewish girls from Riverdale.” Van Buren answers that it still works pretty well on girls from Jackson Heights.

On girls from Pasadena, too.