A Journey Through Literary America
by Thomas R. Hummel and Photography by Tamra L. Dempsey
Langston Hughes
Celebrate Black History Month – Langston Hughes
I have been remiss. Yesterday (February 1) was the birthday of Langston Hughes and the kickoff to Black History Month. Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, at the beginning of he last century. He lived briefly in Mexico with his father, whom he disliked intensely. He was “discovered” in Washington, D,C, by Vachel Lindsay when, working as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel, he slipped a few poems to the Lindsay in the dining room as the august poet was eating dinner. Although by that time Hughes had already won awards for his writing, he was briefly celebrated as the “busboy poet.” Hughes’s poetry was often deceptively simple. His life was also rich with ironies. There was that breakout moment at the Wardman Park Hotel. Later, there was a wealthy white patroness in New York City who decided that Hughes was her vehicle for uplifting the African American race. Hughes would riding to performances in her limousine during the days of the Great Depression, while others slept on park benches, and realized he wasn’t cut out for that kind of plush life. His poetry suffered. Both Hughes’ life and his poetry were rich with the suggestion of jazz and [...] Read More »
Seven Days
Former Vermonter Creates an American Literary Journey State of the Arts By Amy Lilly When you read poems or novels, you may wonder how much they reflect the authors’ own experiences — particularly when their work is strongly rooted in a sense of place. Think Willa Cather and the Nebraska plains, or Langston Hughes and the streets of Harlem. For ex-Vermonter and literature enthusiast Thomas R. Hummel, writers’ firsthand experiences of place are fascinating in themselves — and have become the subject of his beautifully produced coffee-table book A Journey Through Literary America. Now settled with a family in California, Hummel grew up in Burlington and earned his bachelor’s in English and German literature at Middlebury College in 1990. It was partly his fond memories of the Queen City that inspired him to look into how this country’s writers experienced the places they wrote about. For the book, Hummel wrote absorbing bios of 26 American writers, four of them poets, whom he chose from an original list of 50 authors “who wrote with a descriptive sense of place.” Photographer Tamra L. Dempsey drove 15,000 miles over the course of a year to shoot the houses, neighborhoods and skylines that helped [...] Read More »
Shelf-Awareness
Gift Books for the Holidays, Part III This absolutely gorgeous book belongs in every book lover’s library. Beginning with Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, ending with E. Annie Proulx and Richard Ford, Thomas Hummel examines the relationship between place and an author’s identity, writing about 26 authors, with brief biographies and excerpts of their prose. Tamra Dempsey’s photographs are the perfect enhancement to Hummel’s essays. Willa Cather is evoked with golden prairies and a farmhouse in a sunset-red sky; Langston Hughes with brownstones and Bailey’s Funeral Home in Harlem; Raymond Carver with the site of his childhood home in Yakima (“living on a staple of bitterness”) and the Cornerhouse Restaurant and the marina in Port Angeles. Original: http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a1/801347.html Read More »
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