Fine Clothes to the Jew

by Langston Hughes

These poems, for the most part, interpret the more primitive types of American Negro, the bell-boys, the cabaret girls, the migratory workers, the singers of Blues and Spirituals, and the makers of folk-songs. As in The Weary Blues, Mr. Hughes expresses the joy and pathos, the beauty and ugliness, of their lives.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

89 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Through poetry, prose, and drama, American writer James Langston Hughes made important contributions to the Harlem renaissance; his best-known works include Weary Blues (1926) and The Ways of White Folks (1934).

People best know this social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist James Mercer Langston Hughes, one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry, for his famous written work about the period, when "Harlem was in vogue."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langsto...

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

**You can read this collection for free courtesy of Yale University: https://collections.library.yale.edu/...**

I came across the title of this 1927 collection last month when I read Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. In the book it was mentioned that Zora would read Hughes' book to the people she was collecting folklore from. It became "de party book" and was "quoted in Railroad camps, phosphate mines, turpentine stills, etc.". After reading that passage I had to see why did this book resonate so much with everyday Black people. After reading I can see why. The language/dialect that Hughes writes in is the language of the Black working class. The poems also had a blues feeling to them.

The title is interesting, especially because it is not a title of any of the poems, it comes from some lines in the poem "Hard Luck", "Gather up yo' fine clothes, An' sell 'em to de Jew". According to Joe Nazel, the phrase "Fine Clothes to the Jew" was popular in Harlem, and refers to when people would sell their clothes to Jewish-owned pawn shops when they were in need of money.

[laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad, lonely, beautiful.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This, Hughes's second poetry collection, is different from the first in that it leans more heavily into blues music structure and into dialectal language use. It's not that these didn't feature in Weary Blues, but in this collection one can read most of the poems with a blues shuffle riff playing in one's head (and, if you do, you will hear how Muddy Waters might have belted them out in a Blues club.)

While it's fun to read, this collection is not nearly so evocative as the collection that preceded. Still, if you like poetry and / or the Blues, you'll definitely find this to be a worthwhile read.

[David Brimer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Langston’s early collections read like the blues, and slowly grow with the stream of black music, morphing into the Be Bop of his poetry 30 years after this. His second collection, much like his first, is rooted in the blues. While “Fine Clothes For The Jew” doesn’t pack quite the same punch as “The Weary Blues,” it is still a vibrant and vital collection.

[Dianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Langston Hughes is a favorite - a snapshot boots on the ground in Harlem in the Renaissance of culture, style, speech and music. Tough going for those unaccustomed to the vernacular of the day, myself included, who came along a few decades later.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hughes' poetry is a recent discovery for me; I've been missing out. Favorite from this volume:


PRAYER

I ask you this:
Which way to go?
I ask you this:
Which sin to bear?
Which crown to put
Upon my hair?
I do not know,
Lord God,
I do not know,

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

i would like to see some of these poems, most of which are written in the style of classic blues, performed live

[annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

mundane and musical

[Renee Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dream-singers all, –– / My people. / Story-tellers all, –– / My people."