Black Misery

Published posthumously, Langston Hughes’s final book of poems Black Misery is categorized as children’s literature. Hughes was approached by publisher Paul Eriksson in 1967 to write Black Misery, a literal blackening of children’s author Suzanne Heller’s Misery trilogy of short poems that humorously addressed the perceived miseries of white middle-class childhood. Eriksson believed that Hughes could create a successful satirical counterpart to Heller’s work, focusing on the miseries of black childhood. Hughes’s poetry exposes the effects of racism on black life and black childhood experiences in particular. Originally slotted for 45 captions, Hughes passed away with only 27 written, resulting in this short, but poignant collection.