Upsoaring wings: This fenced-off narrow space

Langston Hughes was one of the many vibrant and eloquent voices of the Harlem Renaissance. And like Yeats and Hopkins and Owen and Marlowe, I just can’t get enough of him; in the six years I’ve marked National Poetry Month, this is the fifth time I’ve included one or more poems by Hughes.

Today we’re having “I Look at the World” because I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be the out-of-place ones in our society. Hughes always captures that viewpoint concisely.

“I Look at the World”

I look at the world

From awakening eyes in a black face—

And this is what I see:

This fenced-off narrow space   

Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls

Through dark eyes in a dark face—

And this is what I know:

That all these walls oppression builds

Will have to go!

I look at my own body   

With eyes no longer blind—

And I see that my own hands can make

The world that's in my mind.

Then let us hurry, comrades,

The road to find.