Why I Love "Ballad of the Landlord"

     I love Langston Hughes’ poetry because it is filled with settings of social injustice and inequality. Throughout his poems, Hughes sheds light on the inadequacies of our social structure through seemingly common experiences. Poems like “Madam and the Rent Man” and “Madam and the Phone Bill” exemplify this recurring theme in his work. For the purposes of this post I focused on the “Ballad of the Landlord”. “Ballad of the Landlord” was published in 1940, in it Hughes describes a situation in which a landlord, who has not kept up the building, is trying to get rent from a tenant who refuses to pay until the landlord fixes certain things in the house. Eventually the landlord’s threat of eviction infuriates the tenant to the point of threatening to physically assault the landlord. The poem closes with news headlines that read, “MAN THREATENS LANDLORD / TENANT HELD NO BAIL / JUDGE GIVES NEGRO 90 DAYS IN COUNTY JAIL” (31-33 Hughes). The theme resembles many of Hughes’ poems, in which a person of a lower financial status is railroaded and treated unfairly based on race and socioeconomic circumstances.

     The first thing that draws me into Hughes' poetry is his use of language. Hughes uses, for lack of a better term, real language. Hughes is able to do this because the subject matter is so important that it does not need haughty diction to dress it up. To do so would actually take away from the importance of the theme of the poem. Stanza five presents us with a great example of this when Hughes writes:

“Um-huh! You talking high and mighty.

Talk on – till you get through.

You ain’t gonna be able to say a word

If I land my fist on you. (17-20)

The speaker’s anger basically jumps off the page here. Hughes also juxtaposes this with the next stanza in which the landlord yells out:

“Police! Police!

Come and get this man!

He’s trying to ruin the government

And overturn the land! (21-24)

As readers we are immediately aware of the difference in educational status between the two characters due to Hughes’ use of language. Yet, from early in the poem we also know that the landlord is basically a slumlord, so without being explicit, Hughes is able to use language to show that education and socioeconomic status do not predict honest and respectable behavior. 

     The above is just one example of what makes Hughes' poetry dear to me. His focus on the plight of minorities and low-income living situations truly make Hughes a poet for the masses.