For some reason, I’m still on a poetry kick. What sort of test can you apply that will indicate a great poet as opposed to just an average or good one?
One way, is “Can they write a list?” This may sound silly, but the greatest poets can write a poem that looks as if they were going shopping for groceries while making you see, taste, and feel a whole host of emotions.
Langston Hughes. How many ways can you say shades of brown while making the reader view them as real, vibrant women?
Langston Hughes
1902-1967
Harlem Sweeties
Have you dug the spill
Of Sugar Hill?
Cast your gims
On this sepia thrill:
Brown sugar lassie,
Caramel treat,
Honey-gold baby
Sweet enough to eat.
Peach-skinned girlie,
Coffee and cream,
Chocolate darling
Out of a dream.
Walnut tinted
Or cocoa brown,
Pomegranate-lipped
Pride of the town.
Rich cream-colored
plum-tinted black,
Feminine sweetness
In Harlem’s no lack.
Glow of the quince
To blush of the rose.
Persimmon bronze
To cinnamon toes.
Blackberry cordial,
Virginia Dare wine—
All those sweet colors
Flavor Harlem of mine!
Walnut or cocoa,
Let me repeat:
Caramel, brown sugar,
A chocolate treat.
Molasses taffy,
Coffee and cream,
Licorice, clove, cinnamon
To a honey-brown dream.
Ginger, wine-gold,
Persimmon, blackberry,
All through the spectrum
Harlem girls vary—
So if you want to know
beauty’s Rainbow-sweet thrill,
Stroll down luscious,
Delicious, fine Sugar Hill
