SOURCE: ya Salaam, Kalamu. “Langston Hughes: A Poet Supreme.” In The Furious Flowering of African American Poetry, edited by Joanne V. Gabbin, pp. 17-24. Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1999.

In the following essay, ya Salaam offers an analysis of Montage of a Dream Deferred to support his praise of Hughes as a prime innovator and creative force in the development of black poetry.

For the purposes of this essay, black poetry is poetry that (1) is grounded in the black experience; (2) utilizes black music as a structural or emulative model; and (3) “consciously” transforms the prevailing standards of poetry through an iconoclastic and innovative use of language.

No poet better carries the mantle of model and innovator than Langston Hughes, the prolific Duke Ellington of black poetry. Hughes's output alone is staggering. During his lifetime, he published over eight hundred poems. Moreover, he single-handedly defined “blues poetry” and is...