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“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” consists of 10 lines of uneven length, which Hughes has grouped into five stanzas ranging between one and four lines. On a formal level, this structure is quite unusual, since Hughes doesn’t follow any predictable patterns. Every line and every stanza has its own unique rhythm and cadence, such that the flow of language shifts constantly. As such, the poem’s formal structure evokes the variable flow of a river as it moves through a landscape, slowing down as it widens and speeding up as it narrows. If Hughes chose to mimic the flow of a river in this way, he did so with the conscious intention of moving beyond conventional modes of verse. Hughes felt from the very beginning of his career that the white, Western tradition of poetry did not provide the necessary resources for expressing the depth and complexity of the Black experience. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” marks an early experiment in which he used free verse to explore new possibilities.

Just as Hughes avoided traditional verse forms, he also avoided the usual methods associated with lyric poetry. The term “lyric” refers to any poem with a first-person speaker whose speech expresses the speaker’s state of mind. Lyric poems tend to be relatively short, and they often explore the unfolding process of the speaker’s perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. This real-time unfolding provides the basic structure for the traditional lyric poem. In Hughes’s case, however, it’s important to note two key differences that distinguish his poem from a traditional lyric. First, the first-person speaker isn’t just an ordinary person. There’s a strong sense that, though speaking with the singular “I,” the speaker gives voice to the collective of experience of Black cultures and communities throughout history. Second, because this collective speaker has a perspective that transcends ordinary time, the words don’t track his or her shifting thoughts and feelings. Instead, the words remain focused throughout the entire poem on rivers as symbols for the collective Black “soul.” The repetition of this same basic motif across all 10 lines creates the impression of profundity. In this way, the “content” of the speaker’s speech evokes growing depth rather than unfolding experience.

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