Langston Hughes: 'We are the American Heartbreak" Langston Hughes reads Langston Hughes -

Recorded for 'Langston Hughes reads Langston Hughes'

We are the American heartbreak —
The rock on which Freedom
Stumped its toe —
The great mistake
That Jamestown made
Long ago.

That is one of my poems about the problems of the Negro people in relation to American democracy. Perhaps we should say the problems of American democracy in relation to the Negro people, because for some reason the Negro in America has always been called “a problem.”

Well, I guess we are.

Many of my poems try to capture various aspects of this problem. I’ve written poems about housing. For example, when Negroes move into some American communities, even if it’s just one Negro family moving into a block, within a few days, sign begin to go up: “For Sale.” And, usually, the real estate brokers who handle the sales double the prices on those houses — because they know that Negro people often have a hard time buying decent homes, and so they charge them more for the homes that eventually they are willing to sell them.

Well, I try to put these things — these problems — into poetry. In recent years, more and more Americans have been leaving the big cities for suburban areas and among them have been a number of Negroes who are able to buy homes in the suburbs. Well, if those folks move to, say, Saint Albans, white people flee from Saint Albans, move a little further out on Long Island. Negroes — those of means — then themselves try to move a little further out on Long Island, white people flee a little further, and after a while … you get to the ocean.

So, I suppose, suburbia eventually will be only in the sea — I don’t know where else it could be, around New York, at any rate.

Here is the complete poem

Orson Welles as Shylock: 'For suffrance is the badge of all our tribe', The Merchant of Venice, Dean Martin Show - 1968

25 January 1968,

Good evening,

Dean asked me if I'd do a little Shakespeare, I decided to do something from The Merchant of Venice, you know, Sjhakespeare said just about everything that needed to be said on every subject,  and I think on the matter of bigotry, no one has ever spoken out better than he has three hundred years ago, so I'm going to do a short scene from the Merchant of Venice.

Just imagine that I'm Shylock, an old Jewish moneylender, who lives in the Jewish ghetto of Venice, hated by the Christians, and he is approached by his old enemy, the merchant Antonio who wants to borrow 3000 ducats.

Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
‘Shylock, we would have moneys:’ you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: moneys is your suit
What should I say to you? Should I not say
‘Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or
Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this;
‘Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn’d me such a day; another time
You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies
I’ll lend you thus much moneys’?

To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.
He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million;
laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies;
And what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

James Joyce: 'The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk', Finnegan's Wake - 1929

The audio (recorded in 1929) is of James Joyce reading the Anna Livia Plurabelle section of Finnegans Wake. It's a chattering dialogue between two washer women who as night falls become a tree and a stone. (pages 213-216, or the last few pages of part 1)

Well, you know or don't you kennet or haven't I told you every telling has a taling and that's the he and the she of it. Look, look, the dusk is growing! My branches lofty are taking root. And my cold cher's gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is late. 'Tis endless now senne eye or erewone last saw Waterhouse's clogh. They took it asunder, I hurd thum sigh. When will they reassemble it? O, my back, my back, my bach! I'd want to go to Aches-les-Pains. Pingpong! There's the Belle for Sexaloitez! And Concepta de Send-us-pray! Pang! Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the showers! And grant thaya grace! Aman. Will we spread them here now? Ay, we will. Flip! Spread on your bank and I'll spread mine on mine. Flep! It's what I'm doing. Spread! It's churning chill. Der went is rising. I'll lay a few stones on the hostel sheets. A man and his bride embraced between them. Else I'd have folded and sprinkled them only. And I'll tie my butcher's apron here. It's suety yet. The strollers will pass it by. Six shifts, ten kerchiefs, nine to hold to the fire and one for the code, the convent napkins, twelve, one baby's shawl. Good mother Jossiph knows, she said. Whose head? Mutter snores? Deataceas! Wharnow are alle her childer, say? In kingdome gone or power to come or gloria be to them farther? Allalivial, allalluvial! Some here, more no more, more again lost alla stranger. I've heard tell that same brooch of the Shannons was married into a family in Spain. And all the Dunders de Dunnes in Markland's Vineland beyond Brendan's herring pool takes number nine in yangsee's hats. And one of Biddy's beads went bobbing till she rounded up lost histereve with a marigold and a cobbler's candle in a side strain of a main drain of a manzinahurries off Bachelor's Walk. But all that's left to the last of the Meaghers in the loup of the years prefixed and between is one kneebuckle and two hooks in the front. Do you tell me that now? I do in troth. Orara por Orbe and poor Las Animas! Ussa, Ulla, we're umbas all! Mezha, didn't you hear it a deluge of times, ufer and ufer, respund to spond? You deed, you deed! I need, I need! It's that irrawaddyng I've stoke in my aars. It all but husheth the lethest zswound. Oronoko! What's your trouble? Is that the great Finnleader himself in his joakimono on his statue riding the high horse there forehengist? Father of Otters, it is himself! Yonne there! Isset that? On Fallareen Common? You're thinking of Astley's Amphitheayter where the bobby restrained you making sugarstuck pouts to the ghostwhite horse of the Peppers. Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, and spread your washing proper! It's well I know your sort of slop. Flap! Ireland sober is Ireland stiff. Lord help you, Maria, full of grease, the load is with me! Your prayers. I sonht zo! Madammangut! Were you lifting your elbow, tell us, glazy cheeks, in Conway's Carrigacurra canteen? Was I what, hobbledyhips? Flop! Your rere gait's creakorheuman bitts your butts disagrees. Amn't I up since the damp dawn, marthared mary allacook, with Corrigan's pulse and varicoarse veins, my pramaxle smashed, Alice Jane in decline and my oneeyed mongrel twice run over, soaking and bleaching boiler rags, and sweating cold, a widow like me, for to deck my tennis champion son, the laundryman with the lavandier flannels? You won your limpopo limp fron the husky hussars when Collars and Cuffs was heir to the town and your slur gave the stink to Carlow. Holy Scamander, I sar it again! Near the golden falls. Icis on us! Seints of light! Zezere! Subdue your noise, you hamble creature! What is it but a blackburry growth or the dwyergray ass them four old codgers owns. Are you meanam Tarpey and Lyons and Gregory? I meyne now, thank all, the four of them, and the roar of them, that draves that stray in the mist and old Johnny MacDougal along with them. Is that the Poolbeg flasher beyant, pharphar, or a fireboat coasting nyar the Kishtna or a glow I behold within a hedge or my Garry come back from the Indes? Wait till the honeying of the lune, love! Die eve, little eve, die! We see that wonder in your eye. We'll meet again, we'll part once more. The spot I'll seek if the hour you'll find. My chart shines high where the blue milk's upset. Forgivemequick, I'm going! Bubye! And you, pluck your watch, forgetmenot. Your evenlode. So save to jurna's end! My sights are swimming thicker on me by the shadows to this place. I sow home slowly now by own way, moy-valley way. Towy I too, rathmine.

Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia, trinkettoes! And sure he was the quare old buntz too, Dear Dirty Dumpling, foostherfather of fingalls and dotthergills. Gaffer and gammer we're all their gangsters. Hadn't he seven dams to wive him? And every dam had her seven crutches. And every crutch had its seven hues. And each hue had a differing cry. Sudds for me and supper for you and the doctor's bill for Joe John. Befor! Bifur! He married his markets, cheap by foul, I know, like any Etrurian Catholic Heathen, in their pinky limony creamy birnies and their turkiss indienne mauves. But at milkidmass who was the spouse? Then all that was was fair. Tys Elvenland! Teems of times and happy returns. The seim anew. Ordovico or viricordo. Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be. Northmen's thing made southfolk's place but howmulty plurators made eachone in person? Latin me that, my trinity scholard, out of eure sanscreed into oure eryan! Hircus Civis Eblanensis! He had buckgoat paps on him, soft ones for orphans. Ho, Lord! Twins of his bosom. Lord save us! And ho! Hey? What all men. Hot? His tittering daughters of. Whawk?

Can't hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thom Malone? Can't hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffeying waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won't moos. I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia's daughter-sons. Dark hawks hear us. . .My ho head halls. I feel as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who were Shem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now! Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!

James Joyce: 'You pray to a local and obscure idol', reading from Ulysses - 1924

recorded 1924

Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment since by my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported into a country far away from this country, into an age remote from this age, that I stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the speech of some highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful Moses. His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smoke ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. And let our crooked smokes. Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it yourself?

— And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard his words and their meaning was revealed to me. From the Fathers It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are corrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That's saint Augustine.

— Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen; we are a mighty people. You have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity. Nile. Child, man, effigy. By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.

— You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at our name. A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it boldly:

— But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage nor followed the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the outlaw.

Liam Neeson (reads WB Yeats): 'A terrible beauty is born', Easter 1916 - 2016

Martch 2016, published by RTE for centenary of Easter Rising

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

TS Eliot: 'On the Naming of Cats', 'TS Eliot reads TS Eliot' - 1947

T.S. Eliot reads from his 1930s classic, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Poem text, background, and other goodies here: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/26/t-s-eliot-reads-the-naming-of-cats-1947/

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey —
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter —
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkstrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum —
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover —
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Tony Wilson: 'On the wild desert plains west of Old Humpty Doo', Emo the Emu, Airey's Inlet Festival of Words - 2011

20 August, 2011, Airey's Inlet, Victoria, Australia

Tony Wilson's read this poem out after main at the opening night dinner. It has been cut down and edited and published as picture book by Scholastic Australia. The illustrator is Lucia Masciullo.

On the wild grassy plains west of Old Humpty Doo

Lived the moodiest, mopeyest, saddest Emu

Just why he was sad, well he didn’t quite know.

But he was, so the other birds called him, ‘Emo’.

‘I hate running fast,’ he would say to his brother

‘I hate coming last’ he would say to his mother

‘I hate living here at the top of Australia’

‘I’m Emo the Emu, the world’s biggest failure.’

Now most emus grow up to more than two metres

And most emus are not the fussiest eaters,

But Emo the Emu he slouched with a hunch

And only ate Cedar Bay Cherries for lunch.

‘I hate eating weeds,’ he would say to his father

I hate eating seeds, grasses mango and guava’

‘I hate living here at the top of Australia

I’m Emo the Emu, the world’s biggest failure. ‘

On all types of days and in all types of weathers

Emo the Emu wore dark winter feathers

He wore his crown plumage long over his eyes

And rattled off lists of new things to despise

‘I hate kangaroos,’ he would say to his teachers

‘I hate all of youse with your strange emu features

I hate the goanna, the dunnart, the snake

And what’s with koalas - the noise that they make!

‘I hate the green tree frogs, the frilly necked lizards

I hate a wild dog from its nose to its gizzards

I hate how the crocs here are all a bit snappy

I’m Emo the Emu, and I’m none too happy

On the red desert plains south of Angurugu

Emo bumped into a kangaroo who ...

was sheltering out of the heat of the day

And made the mistake of just saying ‘g’day’.

‘G’day?’ muttered Emo, ‘A good day it’s not!’

I’ve walked forty miles and the sand is too hot

I hate this warm weather,’ said Emo morosely

I should watch the evening forecast more closely

‘I hate the outback and its endless blue skies

I hate all the dust and I hate all the flies.

I don’t like this hear and I don’t like Australia

I’m Emo the Emu, the world’s biggest failure!’

illustrated Lucia Masciullo

The kangaroo snorted, ‘Hey buck up there, matey,

A pleasure to meet you, my friends call me Katie.

I doubt you’re a failure, I doubt you’re so bad

I just think that Emo the Emu is sad

I’ve noticed you use the word ‘hate’ quite a lot

Well how ‘bout we ditch it and give ‘like’ a shot?

And as for Australia, you surely can’t mean it?

You must not have travelled and properly seen it.’

Katie the Kanga, she jumped with elation

‘What’s say we travel around the whole nation!

By foot or by car or by truck or by bike

Until you admit that there’s something you like.’

Emo the Emu - he tried to say ‘no’

But Katie the Kanga convinced him to go

The first place they stopped was the rock Uluru

That grumbling bird and that red kangaroo

‘Isn’t it truly, divinely superb?’

Said Katie the Kanga to Emo the bird

Emo just shrugged and stared down at his toes

‘I guess it’s alright, yeah, it’s okay I s’pose.’

They headed off east through the rich Darling Downs

And sat on verandahs in quaint country towns

When they reached Townsville they donned swimmers masks

And swam with the coral the fish and the sharks.

‘You must surely love it, or my name’s not Kate’

Admit that the Barrier Reef is just great.’

Emo just shrugged as he picked at his nose

‘I guess it’s alright, yeah, it’s okay I s’pose.’

They journeyed to Sydney, that city of lights

That city that hums through the days and the nights

They sailed Sydney Harbour and boarded the ferry

And Katie said, ‘Matey how extraordinary!’

‘The beach out at Bondi, the Sails and the Bridge

Don’t you think Sydney is just ridgey didge?’

Emo the Emu was hard to impress

‘I s’pose it’s alright, yeah, it’s okay I guess.’

They trekked the high country, with brumbies and snow

Then shot down to Melbourne to take in a show

The famed Twelve Apostles,’ said Kangaroo Kate,

‘But don’t count too closely - you’ll only find eight.’

Emo the Emu looked down at his socks

‘I guess they’re alright, yeah, they’re okay for rocks.’

They paddled the river in Tassie’s South West

A wilderness up there amongst the world’s best.

From towering headlands they saw a Great White

Cruising the coast of the Great Aussie Bight

‘Look at this coastline, the view from these cliffs.

Admit that you like it, no buts and no ifs!’

Emo the Emu breathed in the salt air

‘I guess it’s all right, um, are we nearly there?’

They did the last bit in an old camper trailer

The long rugged coastline of Western Australia

From Perth and the karri trees down in the south,

To open cut mines with their open cut mouths

‘Isn’t this lovely, oh dark prince of gloom?’

The kangaroo said as they pulled up in Broome.

Emo the Emu, just furrowed his brow

‘I think that I’m ready to head for home now.’

On the wild grassy plains west of old Humpty Doo

Emo caught up with his mob of emu

Including his mother and father and brothers

And sisters and cousins and aunties and others

‘Come here!’ shouted Emo, ‘Come here and meet Katie!’

We saw the whole country, did me and my matey

‘I liked it down south and I liked it out west

Sit down and I’ll tell you the bits I liked best

I liked it up north and I liked it out east

I can’t even think of the bits I liked least’

‘He said the word “like,” whispered Emo’s stunned mother

‘He said the world ‘like’’ said the birds to each other.

He said the word ‘like’ said the Kangaroo Kate

‘He said the word ‘like’ where he once would say ‘hate’.

With stars spreading wide over Humpty Doo skies

Katie and Emo they said their goodbyes

‘I had a good trip,’ said the smiling emu

I had a good trip and I hope you did too.’

‘Kinda I guess,’ Katie joked to her friend

‘Sorta quite good, in a way, by the end.’

This poem was edited and published as a picture book. You can purchase Emo the Emu here