Langston Hughes: A Biography

A lot of the conflict is circumstantial rather than existential. It depends on what's the occasion that he's writing for. What are the expectations of those audiences? The other thing to know about Langston Hughes is he's among the first poets, first African-American poet to make a living almost exclusively through his poetry and his playwriting. He was in that way much more beholden to what audience expectations and some other poets might have been. Part of his genius is he's flexible enough to adapt his vision to different contexts while from my perspective remaining true to a kind of core Langston Hughes.