after Langston Hughes
For the Fall 2022 special issue of MQR, “Fractured Union: American Democracy on the Brink,” we reached out to a range of esteemed authors to write short essays that respond to Langston Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again.”
For more from the special folio, “On Langston Hughes’s ‘Let America Be America Again,’” you can purchase the issue here.
Make capitalism be capitalism again. Make it be the oligarchy it used to be. Make it be the mogul on the plane Seeking a tax haven where he himself is rich. (Capitalism never was capitalism to me.) Make capitalism be the oligarchy the oligarchs gerrymandered— Make it be that great strong land of money Where never workers connive nor unions scheme That any man be accountable to one below. (It never was capitalism to me.) O, make my land be a land where Wealth Is curbed by no false minimum wage, But vacation is limited, and life is rich, Power is in the air we breathe. (There’s never been power for me, Nor riches in this “homeland of the rich.”) Say, who are you that queues to vote? And who are you that draws your veil across the news? I am the wealthy white, fooled and criticized, I am the wealthy man, earning all I get. I am the wealthy, driven from my land, I am the wealthy, clutching the pearls I need— And finding only the same old stupid plan Of healthcare for all, of poor make rich men bleed. I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Pulling on that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one’s own greed! I am the corporation, bondsman to the worker. I am the man who hired the machine. I am the industry, hero to you all. I am the CEO, humble, hungry, mean— Hungry yet today despite the oligarchy. Beaten yet today—O, moguls! I am the man who never got ahead, The deserving man cheated through the years. Yet I’m the one who gerrymandered our basic oligarchy In the New World before inheritance, Who gerrymandered a oligarchy so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That’s made capitalism the land it has become. O, I’m the man who exploited others In search of what I meant to be my realm But where do the rich come from? Sons of the soil, natives, every one. Workers come from elsewhere, strangers To build a “homeland of the rich.” The rich? Who said the rich? Not me? Surely not me? The millions I was taxed this year? The millions lost with Russian oil? The millions who expect their pay? For all the oligarchies we’ve gerrymandered And all the songs we’ve sung And all the hopes we’ve held And all the flags we’ve hung, The moguls who have nothing go our way— Except the oligarchy that’s almost dead today. O, make capitalism be capitalism again— The land that never has been yet— And yet must be—the land where I am rich. The land that’s mine—mine, mine, mine, ME— Who made capitalism, Whose golf and yachts, whose MBA, Whose wealth at the startup, whose Prime shipping, Must bring back our mighty oligarchy again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose— The steel of wealth does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the moguls’ lives, We must take back our land again, Capitalism! O, yes, I say it plain, capitalism never was capitalism to me, And yet I swear this oath— Capitalism will be! Out of the rack and ruin of big government, The stink and rot of tax, and health, and rights, We, the moguls, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the factories. The warehouse and the endless planes— All, all the stretch of these great green states— And make capitalism again!
Author’s note
I began the exercise of transforming Langston Hughes’ poem as a kind of amoral Mad Libs; I was trying to trace the arc between the language he used and the language of Donald Trump’s Republican Party, which has so successfully appropriated and corrupted so much of the progressive rhetoric that originated with the American left. At first, I used simple find and replace. Then, I went line by line, tweaking to alter point of view. Who is the person who fails to understand progress for what it is? Who feels simultaneously entitled and shorted? Hughes’ language is precise and capacious, and so I found myself continually surprised by not only how much I could change by swapping just one word, but also the ways existing lines slipped into possible new interpretations (those states are green with what, exactly?). The speaker of my lines is absurd; the speaker of Hughes’ poem clear-sighted and able to articulate the gap between the America people wish for and the America that is. That understanding of time and history has no place in my version; the voice is trapped in amber, looking out through the curved gold with no sense of how their vision has been distorted. As I finished, I located a recording of James Earl Jones reading the Ellison and listened to it to wash my mind clean. (Again?)
For more from the Fall 2022 special issue of MQR, “Fractured Union: American Democracy on the Brink,” you can purchase the issue here.
