18 pages • 36 minutes read
Tired
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"We never know how high we are” by Emily Dickinson (circa 1870)
Like “Tired,” this poem uses simplistic, disarming language to address complex issues. “Tired” features common words like “beautiful” and “kind” to symbolize the world the speaker wants to bring about, while Dickinson’s poem uses “the sky” to represent the potential and limitations of humans. As with the speaker in “Tired,” the speaker in Dickinson’s poem assumes the reader is on her side, shown through the plural pronoun “we.”
“This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams (1934)
In Williams’ poem, fruit represents a personal moment between the speaker and someone he is close with. Although the subject matter differs sharply, both “Tired” and “This Is Just To Say” rely on precise images and plain language. Williams was associated with the Imagist movement, and he was not against writing about politics because he, too, contributed to New Masses.
“Harlem” by Langston Hughes (1951)
“Harlem” is one of Hughes’s better-known poems. It regularly appears in anthologies, and it features many of the elements in “Tired.” Both poems ask the audience questions. In “Harlem,” the speaker wants to know, “What happens to a dream deferred?” (Line 1). In other words, the speaker is wondering what becomes of indefinitely postponed hopes and wishes. As with “Tired,” the speaker doesn’t arrive at one specific answer, and the speaker relies on vivid, relatively grotesque imagery. Instead of worms corrupting a piece of fruit, there’s “a sore” and “rotten meat.” This poem addresses race because the title, “Harlem,” refers to the predominantly Black neighborhood in New York City where many residents have had their dreams squashed or "deferred" due to racism.
Further Literary Resources
"How To Be a Bad Writer” by Langston Hughes (1950)
Like the speaker in “Tired,” the speaker in this essay is genial and inclusive. The essay illuminates Hughes’s poetics and highlights why he used the devices he does in “Tired.” For example, in “Tired,” there’s an emphasis on plain, common diction and symbols. This language connects to the belief, as articulated in the essay, that a bad writer will have “nothing to say, but use a great many words, particularly high-sounding words, to say it.” In “Tired,” the speaker doesn’t use “high-sounding words,” instead, the speaker uses carefully chosen everyday terms.
The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes (1990)
This book collects Hughes’s writings from the perspective of Jesse B. Semple, or “Simple.” For the Black newspaper, The Chicago Defender, Hughes wrote columns, and some of the columns featured a character named Jesse B. Semple. The name itself reflects Hughes’s aim to create literature out of simple elements. Through Semple, Hughes addresses the many ills—or worms— of the world, including racism and materialism, and he does so in the same disarming tone featured in “Tired.”
“Langston Hughes Was a Lifelong Socialist” by Billy Anania (2021)
This article provides a nuanced overview of Hughes’s politics—particularly his attraction toward communist and socialist ideologies. Anania connects racism and capitalism and shows how Hughes conjoined the two in his work. Additionally, Anania argues that Hughes never completely abandoned progressive policies after his confrontation with Joseph McCarthy. Anania sees Hughes’s ambivalence towards politics—an ambivalence displayed in “Tired”—as a part of his poetics. As Hughes once wrote, “Politics can be the graveyard of the poet.”
Listen to Poem
Listen to Tubyez Cropper of the Beinecke Library read Hughes’s lyric poem. Part of Yale University, Beinecke Library is famous for its rich collection of rare manuscripts and books, and it has a large selection of Hughes’s papers.
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By Langston Hughes
