This poem by Langston Hughes was discovered by a rare-books cataloger in Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It was scrawled in the pages of a book called “An Anthology of Revolutionary Poetry.” The poem itself could be an entry. The speaker, a Black person, sees the world as a “fenced-off narrow space,” an unnecessarily walled place, and resolves to obliterate cruel boundaries. It’s a timeless sort of gesture, at home in the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement — or now.
I look at the world
By Langston Hughes
I look at the world
From awakening eyes in a black face —
And this is what I see:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.
I look then at the silly walls
Through dark eyes in a dark face —
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!
I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind —
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that’s in my mind.
Then let us hurry, comrades,
The road to find.
Langston Hughes (1901–67) was a poetic innovator and a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Through his poetry, novels, plays, essays and children’s books, he sought to honestly depict the joys and hardships of Black lives. Often called “The People’s Poet,” his writing promoted equality, condemned racism and injustice and helped shape American literature and politics.
