Poem
Youth
We have tomorrow
Bright before usLike a flame
Yesterday
a night-gone thing,
A sun-down name.
And dawn to-day
Broad arch above the road we came.
We march! Langston Hughes
Theme: Future Legacies
This month, as Spring finally starts to shine, we’re looking to the future, and the legacies we make. The present moment is important, but it’s equally vital to think about the consequence of our actions down the line. This is also a question of how we affect others: how will our actions be thought of by people not yet born? What impact will our decisions have? Good leadership will consider all of these things: forward thinking is good thinking.
Who?
To help with this forward-facing approach is the poem ‘Youth’ by Langston Hughes (1901-1967). Hughes was a poet, novelist, playwright and social activist, best known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. This was an artistic-cultural revival of African American music, writing and politics centred around Harlem in New York, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. As a figurehead, Hughes was looked to not only to write powerful new poetry (which he did – prolifically) but to help in discovering and encouraging new voices in the artworld. His writing is therefore passionate about reaching new audiences, creating a legacy, and ultimately improving the world around him.
What?
The poem I’ve chosen is short, to the point, and bursting with potential. Even the title – ‘Youth – describes a state in which the future is wide open, ready to receive new ways of seeing and of thinking. It has a swift and direct rhythm, carrying us through the poem: unpunctuated, apart from the final, triumphant exclamation-mark, we are borne along by its irresistible pace until ‘We march!’
In this poem, ‘tomorrow’ is enticing, offering always a space of potential, of something to work towards: it is ‘Bright before us / Like a flame’. The simile – when you say one thing is like another – gives the future a flickering incandescence. For Hughes, the future is not some dark and obscure unknown, but something illuminating – illuminated by our positive action. Notice, too, that Hughes doesn’t write ‘I march!’ but ‘We march!’: he recognises that a happy future is worked for together, as a collective effort. Good leaders will also know that we work as one towards tomorrow’s bright flame.
The Broader Context
Of course, making a better world for tomorrow meant a lot to Hughes: he was seeking a better world for those voices often ignored, suppressed, or otherwise overlooked. His future-minded poetry, brimming with hope and fearlessness, teaches us create the future we want – and never to wait for it to happen.
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