Langston Hughes

WHEN THE Academy of American Poets sought nominees to grace commemorative stamps, Langston Hughes far outpolled other lyric notables. The popularity of the Harlem Renaissance poet is but one example of, in the words of biographer Arnold Rampersad, Hughes' "risen presence in the national culture." His poems, novels, short stories, plays, librettos, translations and essays - he covered the Spanish Civil War for The Afro-American newspaper in Baltimore - are being reissued in a 17-volume collection of his works, the first ever.

T he poet Langston Hughes called Harlem the "Negro Capital of the World," and in the 1950s, when I was growing up there, it really was. The great northern migration of Southern blacks that began near the turn of the last century had made Harlem the largest African-American community in the country, and people still looked back with pride to the remarkable flowering of black arts and culture of the 1920s known as the Harlem Renaissance. So I was somewhat nonplused by a recent report that African-Americans no longer constitute a majority in Harlem.

Langston Hughes lives! Listen to his poetry sounding through the voice of a fifth-grade boy who ends a recitation of "I, Too, Sing America" by raising a defiant fist straight from the days of Black Power: They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed - I, too, am America. Langston Hughes, the black poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance, lives. He's on a postage stamp issued this month. He looks good, suave and elegant in that classic style. You could easily imagine him toasting the evening with Duke Ellington and keeping company with Lena Horne.

THERE ONCE was a man from St. Paul/Who went to a fancy dress ball./He said, `Yes, I'll risk it. I'll go as a biscuit!'/And a dog ate him up in the hall."

LOS ANGELES - For 30 years, Edward Miller had tucked away his late father's files on a family friend, papers that included handwritten notes signed "Lang." Finally, at the suggestion of his wife, Miller, a 57-year-old retired court reporter, pulled the old briefcase full of files from the closet and took it to the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. Sue Hodson, curator of literary manuscripts, took one look and got goose bumps. The Millers, who live in Altadena, Calif., had a small but rich cache of letters, manuscripts and other material by Langston Hughes, one of the 20th-century's most beloved and important black voices.

The Train of States By Peter Sis. Greenwillow / HarperCollins. $17.99. Ages 8-11 years. Only Peter Sis could pull this off -- a book about all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, with each state represented as a circus wagon that's going into a red-white-and-blue tent -- and make the book fun to read. The book contains all sorts of information for "doing a report," but Sis' quirky drawings and selections make it all seem more interesting than it ever did before. Did you know about the paleontologists who feuded in 19th-century New Jersey about dinosaurs, or that in Montana, elk, deer and antelope outnumber humans?

The theater at Morgan State University pulsates with so much energy it's just about radioactive. Some 25 actors, singers, dancers and musicians from the school's theater department are rehearsing Langston Hughes' gospel-song play Black Nativity, which opens today. The performers swirl on stage in a montage of African rhythms and gospel music celebrating, as the spiritual says, the birth of the "Sweet Little Jesus Boy." On this night, the Morgan troupe is performing a final run-through before tackling technical and dress rehearsals.

"Reading, Writing, and Rapmatazz," a half-hour of song dance and rap about the aspirations of young people, will air on WBAL-TV (Channel 11) at 8 tonight.Sinbad, from the program "A Different World," stars in the show, which focuses on the pleasures of reading and writing. "Rapmatazz" uses material by high school students as well as works from Shakespeare, Dickens, Langston Hughes and others.

Langston Hughes(1902-1967)Born in Joplin, MO., Hughes played an important part of the Harlem Renaissance which was thriving in New York in the 1920s and '30s.Hughes said of his poems: they are "to be read aloud, crooned, shouted and sung. None with a faraway voice."Many black academics opposed his depiction of blacks. He defied them further by publishing "The Ways of White Folks."He worked as the Madrid correspondent for the Baltimore Afro-American during the Spanish Civil War.-- A Reader's Guide to Twentieth Century Writers

For years, neighbors have teasingly threatened to name a street after Earles Mitchell, a 77-year-old community activist whose love for children is known from City Hall to her Park Heights neighborhood.Yesterday, Mrs. Mitchell's neighbors made good on their threat."Earles Mitchell Way" was unveiled before 50 neighborhood residents, children and city officials gathered outside Langston Hughes Elementary School, across the way from Ms. Mitchell's house."Mrs. Mitchell is our leader. Mrs. Mitchell is our matriarch," said Park Heights resident Beverly Thomas, who helped plan yesterday's activities, which included planting a flower garden in Ms. Mitchell's honor.

Ralph Ellison By Arnold Rampersad Alfred A. Knopf / 657 pages / $35 "The blues is an impulse," Ralph Ellison explained, "to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically." Ralph Ellison is a bluesy biography of the brilliant writer who won the National Book Award in 1953 for the incomparable Invisible Man - and never published another novel.

The theater at Morgan State University pulsates with so much energy it's just about radioactive. Some 25 actors, singers, dancers and musicians from the school's theater department are rehearsing Langston Hughes' gospel-song play Black Nativity, which opens today. The performers swirl on stage in a montage of African rhythms and gospel music celebrating, as the spiritual says, the birth of the "Sweet Little Jesus Boy." On this night, the Morgan troupe is performing a final run-through before tackling technical and dress rehearsals.

The Train of States By Peter Sis. Greenwillow / HarperCollins. $17.99. Ages 8-11 years. Only Peter Sis could pull this off -- a book about all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, with each state represented as a circus wagon that's going into a red-white-and-blue tent -- and make the book fun to read. The book contains all sorts of information for "doing a report," but Sis' quirky drawings and selections make it all seem more interesting than it ever did before. Did you know about the paleontologists who feuded in 19th-century New Jersey about dinosaurs, or that in Montana, elk, deer and antelope outnumber humans?

But if you was to ask me How de blues they come to be, Says if you was to ask me How de blues they come to be - You wouldn't need to ask me: Just look at me and see! - Langston Hughes It's the funkiness of life electrified in the notes on a guitar. It's the weariness of the daily grind distilled in the ache of a human voice. Over the years, some have embellished the blues with different flavors - horns, strings and things. But you really don't need all of that to feel the blues. The nuances are complex, but what resonates at the core is straight-up and real - a penetration into the soul, a cracked mirror held up to reality.

LOS ANGELES - For 30 years, Edward Miller had tucked away his late father's files on a family friend, papers that included handwritten notes signed "Lang." Finally, at the suggestion of his wife, Miller, a 57-year-old retired court reporter, pulled the old briefcase full of files from the closet and took it to the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. Sue Hodson, curator of literary manuscripts, took one look and got goose bumps. The Millers, who live in Altadena, Calif., had a small but rich cache of letters, manuscripts and other material by Langston Hughes, one of the 20th-century's most beloved and important black voices.

Baltimore Jewish Film Festival If the recent Academy Awards have temporarily sated your appetite for hype, you might enjoy some films off the beaten red carpet. The 14th annual Baltimore Jewish Film Festival, which opens at 8:30 p.m. Saturday and runs throughout the month, will introduce seven films never before seen in the Baltimore area. (Two are documentaries.) The lineup includes movies from Israel, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Belgium, Hungary and the United States. The films are: I Am Alive and I Love You(above)

Writer Jim Haskins to speak at Langston Hughes lectureAuthor Jim Haskins will be the guest speaker at the Langston Hughes Lecture Series on Saturday at Annapolis High School, 2700 Riva Road.An English professor at the University of Florida in Gainsville, Mr. Haskins has written more than 100 nonfiction books, including "Christopher Columbus: Admiral of the Ocean Sea," "Scatman: An Authorized Biography" and "Jesse Jackson: A Life."He also has won several literary awards for his work, including the Coretta Scott King Award in 1991 and 1976, the Carter G. Woodson Award in 1989 and the Alabama Library Association Award for Best Work for Children in 1988.

PBS yesterday announced a major shift in direction for "Mobil Masterpiece Theatre" that could transform public television's 27-year-old signature series from a showcase for British drama to one featuring American-made productions by the year 2002. "Mobil Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection" is a $40 million project that will include nine films based on classics of American literature airing over three years under the "Masterpiece Theatre" banner. The funding involves a $15 million grant, the largest ever from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as well as an estimated $10 million per year from Mobil, which is underwriting "Masterpiece Theatre" through 2002.

WHEN THE Academy of American Poets sought nominees to grace commemorative stamps, Langston Hughes far outpolled other lyric notables. The popularity of the Harlem Renaissance poet is but one example of, in the words of biographer Arnold Rampersad, Hughes' "risen presence in the national culture." His poems, novels, short stories, plays, librettos, translations and essays - he covered the Spanish Civil War for The Afro-American newspaper in Baltimore - are being reissued in a 17-volume collection of his works, the first ever.