This week’s poem, Langston Hughes’s “My People,” we run in homage to the remarkable Maine writer, artist and teacher Ashley Bryan, who passed away this month at the age of 98.
Bryan’s friends and admirers recall how he began his events with a “call-and-response” recitation of “My People,” reading each line and then pausing, inviting his audience to chant the same words themselves.
“But they wouldn’t just repeat it,” says Nichols Clark, founding director of The Ashley Bryan Center. “They would sing it, shout it, animate it!” Sharing Hughes’ poem so interactively, says Clark, was a way to “get everyone together in the room.”
“Ashley’s equivalent of a prayer before dinner” is how Caitlyn Dlouhy, Bryan’s editor of 21 years, describes his relationship with “My People.” Dlouhy recalls, “I honestly can’t emphasize what joy, what depth of meaning, Ashley brought others by including them in this poem that meant so much to him.”
Bryan created his first book when he was 6 years old in the Bronx. He went on to become a master draftsman, puppet maker, storyteller and children’s book author and illustrator, and was devoted to bringing the African and African American experience to children’s literature.
After attending art school at Cooper Union, serving at D-Day in World War II, and studying art in Europe, he attended the Skowhegan School of Art, and soon thereafter set up his home and studio in Maine’s Cranberry Isles.
Since then, Bryan has touched countless people all over the world with the vibrant brilliance of his art, his vision of pride and inclusion, and his gospel to “Wake up every morning and find the child in you.”
My People
By Langston Hughes
The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.
Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.
Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “My People,” by Langston Hughes, is in the public domain.
This story was updated at 10 a.m. on Feb. 14 with the correct poem; the poem originally published with this story was not the one Bryan would recite.
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