I came up once and hollered!

I took the elevator

I stood there and I hollered!

So since I’m still here livin’,

You can sign in today and take the tour thru Thursday, so take your time.

If anyone’s interested, I’ll be your hostess this week. As many of you know, my sister, Sans Souci, is running into delays in regards to the publishing of her first poetry book. I thought since I’ve missed Poetry Wednesday, that I might host this week, and do this tribute to Lena Horne featuring a poem by Langston Hughes. I hope you enjoy it.

Before we get started, please make sure that your post has a link to get back to this page to make it easier to take the tour:

1) Copy and paste the following link that I have provided for you from this page to somewhere on your poetry post.

Link back to the Poetry Wednesday tour on Laurita’s page

2) Leave the link of your poetry post in the comments section below. This is the link guests will click on to read your poem.

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It is suggested that the blues emerged in the United States after slavery had been abolished, when African-Americans finally had a chance at individualism and self expression while struggling with being educationally and economically unprepared for freedom in an oppressive society. Though no one can pinpoint when the first blues songs were sung, we do know that it was in the 1890’s that they were first collected and printed. Edison’s first phonograph records came out in 1877, but it was not until 1920 that the blues were recorded for commercial sale. These recordings were immediate successes and became part of the fuel that got the Harlem Renaissance swinging.
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“Hold fast to dreams,
for if dreams die,
life is a broken winged bird,
that cannot fly.”

~ Langston Hughes

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Lena Horne, the elegant and statuesque singer who broke down color barriers by becoming one of Hollywood’s first African-American female stars, and who later made a triumphant return to Broadway, died on May 9 at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan.