Critic Camille Paglia (2005) writes:
Enchanting and exhilarating, ‘Jazzonia’ as a poem seems to burst the walls of the cabaret. We sway between the riveting sights and sounds of the performance and a rushingly expansive panorama of trees and rivers–at one point unveiled by the dancer lifting her dress. Seduction and revelation are combined. So intense is the poet’s delighted contemplation that the audience falls away. No witnesses remain but him–and us as his shadowy guests. The poem itself seems spun out by the jazzers as they play. What they are creating–the only American art form not born in Europe–will spread across the world over the next century in triumphant fulfillment of Hughes’s prophecy (p. 144).
Paglia, C. (2005). Break, blow, burn. New York: Pantheon.
Jazzonia by Langston Hughes
Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.
Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!
Were Eve’s eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?
Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!
In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
for more information about Hughes and this poem, click here: Riverwalk Jazz