Speaks of Rivers. When Langston got to Mexico, tension between him and his father was very strong. His father wanted him to become and engineer, and Langston wanted to be a writer. Langston sent poetry to Brownies Book and Crisis Magazine, and it was accepted and published. This impressed his father, so he agree to pay for college. Langston entered college in the fall of 1921, and after his first year he dropped out. This is when he became involved with the art scene in Harlem. Langston began regularly publishing his work in the Crisis and Opportunity magazines. When Langston won first prize for his poem "The Weary Blues", which was in the poetry section of the 1925 Opportunity magazine literary contest, his literary career began. His first volume of poetry called The Weary Blues came out in 1926. In Langstons poetry, he uses the rhythms of African American music, particularly blues and jazz. He liked blues and jazz extremely. By using this style, his poetry was distinctive from other writers. Hughes's second volume of poetry Fine Clothes to a Jew, was not accepted at the time of its publication because it was too experimental. But there were many critics that believed that it was Hughes's finest work. Langston Hughes returned to school in 1926. He went to a historically black college in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, called Lincoln University. A wealthy white woman in her seventies named Charlotte Osgood Mason helped Langston with his literary career by convincing him to write the novel Not Without Laughter. But later on their relationship was ended because of fight they had in 1930. At this point in Hughes's life he turned to the political left and began to become interested in socialism. He published poetry in New Masses, a journal associated with the Communist Party, and in 1932 he sailed to the Soviet Union with a group of young African Americans. Later in the 1930s, Hughes's primary writing was for the theater. In 1942, ...
