More Elements of Poetry

     In my previous post, I concluded that Langston Hughes scores well on the subject of rhythm. However, that's only a small element of good poetry. I read a little about elements of poetry, and in summarized form, it can be put into the external form and the internal form. The external form being how it sounds and how it looks, and the internal form being other elements like story, personification, simile; basically giving the poem some sort of deeper meaning. From what I've looked at of Hughes, he was quite good at the external part of the poem, but that seems to have been his focus. Sometimes he tells a decent story, but on the deeper parts of internal poetry, at least in my experience, he tends to come up short.

One of many examples would be, "Homesick Blues," one of Hughes' rhythmic poems:

De railroad bridge's
A sad song in de air.
De railroad bridge's
A sad song in de air.
Ever time de trains pass
I wants to go somewhere.

I went down to de station.
Ma heart was in ma mouth.
Went down to de station.
Heart was in ma mouth.
Lookin' for a box car
To roll me to de South.

Homesick blues, Lawd,
'S a terrible thing to have.
Homesick blues is
A terrible thing to have.
To keep from cryin'
I opens ma mouth an' laughs.

 It looks and sounds good, and even tells a decent narrative, but that's about it. Where's the symbolism, metaphor, ambiguity? Although I'm definitely not a poetry aficionado, that's what I tend to look for. Lyrics that make me think or feel something. That being said, I think a good way to compare these poems is to look at songwriters in comparison to Hughes. Obviously as song has to have rhythm, but songwriters also include a lot of the internal elements that really make the lyrics interesting. 

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, I'll use a song written by John Lennon, "In My Life," as an example:

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And the lyrics go:


There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I'll love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I'll love you more

     Now, the lyrics sound good and have a definitive rhythm, but he's also saying a lot. There's a lot of  other songs and songwriters I could have used, such as Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, or obviously, Bob Dylan, but I'm blogging about poetry, and not my musical interests. Anyway, in comparison to some of the lyrics written by those guys, as well as others, it doesn't really seem like Hughes is saying anything. I guess what I'm saying is that you can focus on sounding good and still say something important, which I think Hughes should have done more often.