Langston Hughes

1901–1967 · American poet, novelist & leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes (1901–1967) was one of the defining writers of the Harlem Renaissance, celebrated for poems that fused everyday Black American speech with the rhythms of jazz and blues. “Dreams” is one of his earliest and most anthologized short poems, written in his early twenties. Its plainspoken metaphors have kept it in classrooms and graduation speeches for a century.

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“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly”

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