ursue his first love, poetry. He never looked back. Hughes moved to Harlem at the height of its golden era. He would also go on to make voyages of self-discovery to Africa and Europe, and return to the States with a freer, more confident vision of his own identity as an African-American, and an artist.
             The poetry Hughes crafted over the course of his lifetime is filled with rhythm and beat. His stanzas weave wildly smooth tunes about life as a black American. Indeed, Hughes always acknowledged that his primary poetic influences were the blues and jazz. He once remarked "blues had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going."
             Hughes did not confine himself to revealing just the cadences of black music to his readers. Rather, he wanted his audience to taste the whole of the African American experience.
             In "A Negro Speaks of Rivers", Hughes expresses his
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