As we were assembling this issue and imagining the contributions we would receive, we foresaw some of the challenges that the theme of American democracy would present to our contributors. Over the ages, a great deal of ink, paper, and pixels have been spent on politics, in belles-lettres, the press, and academia. Political chatter on radio, television, and the internet fills numerous channels; in recent years, one can hardly walk an American city block without hearing people talking or disagreeing about politics, and clearly anxious about the nation’s future.
Literature, however, usually plays the long game to pretty much all historical developments. This is especially so in fiction. Nonfiction and poetry are more nimble on the subject of politics but must tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson advised. But slant angles can also elude a writer.
As we fretted about the fate of our special issue, and during a slow moment in one of our Zoom meetings, Davan Maharaj, our guest editor, declaimed or exclaimed, “Why not ask writers to respond to a poem by Langston Hughes? ‘Let America Be America Again’?!” It seemed like a great idea on its face, but reading the poem aloud on Zoom was an “aha” moment for all of us, a parting of the Red Sea, if you will, that widened our vision of this special issue’s possibilities.
Hughes’s ecstatic hope and his realistic portrait of America provide a vibrant artistic testimony that speaks to our national moment in the U.S. The poem compellingly—and retroactively—appropriates the rhetoric of our current politics and reshapes them into a message of inclusion, where speaking truth to power ignites a vision for a better future for all. “Let America Be America Again” is a poem for the ages because it challenges poets taking up the same theme to do something different. It is not only a poem that ought to be revisited, it is a site of pilgrimage.
Inspired by the poem, we reached out to the authors presented here to write short essays that respond to it. We encouraged them to engage the poem in any manner they wished. A meditation on the poem’s political and social message, a rigorous critical reading, or a personal anecdote—all would do just as well.
The response was as extraordinary as it was exhilarating. Each time a new contribution to this special folio arrived was a thrill for us. The diversity of responses and approaches to the poem certainly exceeded our expectations, and we feel, as our readers will, justly rewarded for challenging a great group of writers to ponder a great poem and the possibility of letting America be America, at last, or again.
For more from the Fall 2022 special issue of MQR, “Fractured Union: American Democracy on the Brink,” you can purchase the issue here.
