The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

Today's Featured Book: 

The Weary Blues

by Langston Hughes

Genre: Poetry

Published: 1926

Page Count: 98 pages

Summary: 

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes is a landmark collection of poetry and one of the defining works of the Harlem Renaissance. First published in 1926, this volume introduced Hughes as a major American poet and gave voice to Black urban life with a style that blended lyric poetry, blues rhythm, jazz cadence, and everyday speech.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

THE WEARY BLUES  

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,  

Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,  

I heard a Negro play.  

Down on Lenox Avenue the other night  

By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light  

He did a lazy sway....  

He did a lazy sway....  

To the tune o’ those Weary Blues... 

Langston Hughes. The Weary Blues, p. 1. Kindle Edition. 

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

POEM  (To F. S.) 

I loved my friend.  

He went away from me.  

There’s nothing more to say.  

The poem ends,  

Soft as it began,—  

I loved my friend. 

Langston Hughes. The Weary Blues, p. 92. Kindle Edition. 

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes is a perfect book for me to read in February as a celebration of Black History Month. All my favorite Langston Hughes poems---"Dream Variations," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "Harlem Night Song," "The Dream Keeper," "Epilogue," "Mother to Son," and "Poem"---are in this volume. We used a couple of these for kids to recite during Poem in a Pocket Day at school. I also used to have my second graders memorize "Poem."

The Weary Blues is on my Classics Club list, and it also qualifies as a book published one hundred years ago for several challenges. 

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

How do you feel about the current state of romance novels? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer)

I'm old school, but I'd be happier if my characters weren't so potty-mouthed these days, and if the bedroom door was kept closed. 

Startlement: New and Selected Poems by Ada Limón: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

   

Today's Featured Book: 

Startlement: New and Selected Poems

by Ada Limón

Genre: Poetry

Published: September 30, 2025

Page Count: 232 pages

Summary: 

An essential collection spanning nearly twenty years of emphatic, fearlessly original poetry from one of America’s most celebrated living writers.

Drawing from six previously published books—including widely acclaimed collections The Hurting Kind, The Carrying, and Bright Dead Things—as well as vibrant new work,  Startlement exalts the mysterious. With a tender curiosity, Ada Limón wades into potent unknowns—the strangeness of our brief human lives, the ever-changing nature of the universe—and emerges each time with new revelations about our place in the world.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

We solved the problem of the wind
                                                 with an orange.

Now we've got the problem
                                                 of the orange.

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

After your father gets lost for the third time,
          you get angry because he won't answer his phone.

Part of me wants him to stay lost. God, what has stolen my generosity?

I only bought one book at the Texas Book Festival for myself---Startlement: New and Selected Poems by Ada Limón. 

I heard Limón speak to an almost-full room at the festival.

Limón was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2023 to 2025. You are young to have a new-and-selected collection, the moderator, a fellow poet, remarks. Are there poems you've written and published that you wish you had not written and published?

I am who I was, Limón responds. These poems mark the arc of my life, the arc of a poet. 

The power of noticing is not as much a writing practice, she says, as it is a human daily practice, a practice of being alive. 

It's so easy to miss your own life, Limón tells us. 

Limón goes on to say, The wonderful thing about writing poetry is that it's an offering to the world. It's about loving. 

Sometimes Limón notices something about herself. Am I hungry? Thirsty? she asks herself. No, she realizes, I need to make something.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

November 14th - Are you good at guessing plot twists? (submitted by Snapdragon @ Snapdragon Alcove)

No, I never figure out where a story is going, not even in a children's picture book. Plot, like life, is always a mystery.

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

 

Today's Featured Book: 

The Waste Land

by T. S. Eliot

Genre: Poetry

Published: 1922

Page Count: 36 pages

Summary: 

The Waste Land is a long poem by T. S. Eliot. It is widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central text in Modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. It was published in book form in December 1922. Among its famous phrases are “April is the cruellest month," “I will show you fear in a handful of dust," and the mantra in the Sanskrit language, “Shantih shantih shantih."

Eliot’s poem loosely follows the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King combined with vignettes of contemporary British society. Eliot employs many literary and cultural allusions from the Western canon, Buddhism and the Hindu Upanishads. Because of this, critics and scholars regard the poem as obscure. The poem shifts between voices of satire and prophecy featuring abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location, and time and conjuring of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures.

The poem’s structure is divided into five sections. The first section, The Burial of the Dead, introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. The second, A Game of Chess, employs vignettes of several characters—alternating narrations—that address those themes experientially. The Fire Sermon, the third section, offers a philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial in juxtaposition influenced by Augustine of Hippo and eastern religions. After a fourth section that includes a brief lyrical petition, the culminating fifth section, What the Thunder Said, concludes with an image of judgment.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

April is the cruellest month, breeding 

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing 

Memory and desire, stirring 

Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land, p. 1. Kindle Edition. 

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

O Lord Thou pluckest me out 

O Lord Thou pluckest 

                                   burning

T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land, 56%. Kindle Edition. 

In The Waste Land, a poem some have called his masterpiece and the world's toughest poem, T. S. Eliot explores both the broken world we live in and the wisdom of the world, and he tries to find a way to use the wisdom of the world to give us consolation and reconciliation as we move through our lives. Eliot uses references from Western writers like Shakespeare and Baudelaire as well as ancient stories like that of Philomel and the search for the Holy Grail. In addition, he brings in references to Buddhist texts and Hindu mysticism. 

I attended a two-session seminar on The Waste Land and listened, rapt, to an old English professor riff on this poem for hours. What a delight it was.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

July 25th - 31st - If you set a goal on Goodreads, do you place it realistically, lower than what you think you will read, or higher than you think you will reach? (submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver's Review)

I set a goal of 100 books. I always go way over my goal, but that does not make me happy---I wish I read fewer books more slowly. Sigh.

(Ten of) My Favorite Poems (and an Excerpt from Each)

It's National Poetry Month here in the US, and do we ever need a month of poetry! I am sharing a few of my favorite poems today.

I keep a commonplace book. It's nothing fancy. Here I record my favorite poems and quotes and inspiration and it's where I draw little pictures and more. All the photos here are from my commonplace book. 

10.  "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens

"Among twenty snowy mountains,   

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.... " 

9. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

“Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow...." 

 

8. "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon

"...Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles 

and her yarn. Let evening come...."

 

7. "Yes Yes Yes" by Kaylin Haught

“I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is..."

 

6. "The Visible and the In---" by Marge Piercy

"Some people move through your life

like the perfume of peonies, heavy

and sensual and lingering...."

 

5. "[ancient pond]" by Basho

"ancient pond

frog jumps in

sound of the water"

4. "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams

"so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow..."

3. "Sunlight on the Garden" by Louis MacNeice

"The sunlight on the garden

Hardens and grows cold,

We cannot cage the minute

Within its nets of gold,

When all is told

We cannot beg for pardon...."

 

 

2. "Thanks" by W. S. Merwin

"Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions..."

 

1. "The Orange" by Wendy Cope

"At lunchtime I bought a huge orange

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—

They got quarters and I had a half...."

For more of my favorite poems, take a look at my collection of favorites Oh-So-Splendid Poems. 

Do you have a favorite poem? Would any of mine be on your list? Please share some of your favorites in the comments.

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.   

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón Visits Houston

Ada Limón begins her night at Inprint Houston with a reading from her new book of poetry, The Hurting Kind. She tells us before she begins that she will read ten poems. We can count down, she says, if we wish. We laugh.

She reads her ten poems (Or does she? Is anyone really counting?) She shares poems about moments, the moment her grandfather caught on fire, a moment of connection through sports,  a moment with a groundhog that she tells us about in "Give Me This:"

"...A stranger writes to request my thoughts

on suffering...Instead

I watch the groundhog more closely and a sound escapes

me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine

when I woke. She is a funny creature and earnest,

and she is doing what she can to survive."

Limón stretches out moments from the life and death of her grandfather in her title poem, "The Hurting Kind:" 

"...Before my grandfather died, I asked him what sort

                of horse he had growing up. He said,

Just a horse. My horse, with such tenderness it

                rubbed the bones in my ribs all wrong.

I have always been too sensitive, a weeper

                from a long line of weepers.

I am the hurting kind. I keep searching for proof..."

Lovely, lovely poems. Limón is a master of moments. 

Sometimes great writers can put the words down beautifully on the page but fumble when speaking in public. Not so Limón. Perhaps it's Limón's theater background. Perhaps it helps to have a literate interviewer like Roberto Tejada. Limón snags us with her poems but she reels us in when she reflects on her poems:

"If I'm really listening to the world, it's talking."

"Enter the world through attention."

"I think (poetry) can change us."

She leaves us with this: 

"How little we understand anything.

But maybe we are not here to understand, but to witness."

From the Inprint Houston website: Ada Limón will serve as the 2022-2023 U.S. Poet Laureate. About her work, Tracy K. Smith in The Guardian writes, “Limón is a poet of ecstatic revelation,” and Richard Blanco adds, “Both soft and tender, enormous and resounding, her poetic gestures entrance and transfix.” Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World, and Bright Dead Things, which was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She is also the author of the National Book Critics Circle Award winner The Carrying. According to The Washington Post, “Evocative dreams and pivotal memories make this collection a powerful example of how to carry the things that define us without being broken by them.

For more of Ada Limón, you might like to listen to her interview with host Krista Tippett at On Being.

For more photos, link up at Wordless Wednesday, Comedy Plus, Messymimi's Meanderings, Keith's Ramblings, Create With Joy, Wild Bird Wednesday, and My Corner of the World.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered, or spotlight words you love or just share anything word-ish. It was first created by Kathy at Bermuda Onion.