When I began this poem-a-week project, I decided not to feature any poet twice during the first year. There was no particular reason for this decision. I just figured, correctly it turns out, that I would have no trouble finding fifty-two wonderful poems without having to revisit any one poet.

So here we are, exactly one year since I e-mailed out the first poem on a Sunday night, and it is now time to occasionally feature a second poem by some of the poets whose work has graced these pages during the past 12 months. So I will begin this second-time-around feature with a great poem by one of America's great poets and one of my personal favorites, Langston Hughes.

For biographical material on Hughes, click on the "Poetry" tab at the top of this page, and scroll down to "Theme For English B," which was the second poem to be featured in this project. And since I don't have to repeat this information here this week, I will offer a few quotes about Hughes from the pages of my tattered copy of The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. I think they say all that needs to be said about Hughes' work, and by extension, about the fine poem of his that is presented here.

"Outspoken, down-to-earth, delighting in the cadences and diction of African-American song and speech, Hughes's vision of America is in many way as timely today as in the decades in which these poems were written."
- Christian Science Monitor

"The joy in Hughes' poems is his enviable ability to re-create the innate rhythms and spark of a people, a neighborhood, a city, a country . . . We stroll Lenox Avenue with a man who is alternatively angry and overjoyed, celebrating his people as he warns them . . . His focus never wavers. [He] is all of his people, and as their voices vary, so does his."
- Boston Globe

"[Hughes] is one of the essential figures in American literature. His career is much larger than the body of his poetry alone. By his work and his example, he has enriched our lives."
- The New York Times Book Review

"In [Hughes' verse] you hear the bottleneck guitar-playing of . . . Robert Johnson, the sarcasm of a Miles Davis trumpet solo, the towering authority of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s oratory."
- Cleveland Plain Dealer