“Homesick Blues” and “Tin Roof

“Homesick Blues”, written by Langston Hughes in 1926 towards the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance, and “Tin Roof Blues”, written by Sterling A. Brown in 1931 towards the end of the Harlem Renaissance, are two woeful poems that both make use of the basic form and elements of the blues. On a broader level, they have the same theme of migration and their speakers express similar motivations for and desires of migration. The poems’ major symbol, the …

…unfair, especially when it so happens that “Homesick Blues” and “Tin Roof Blues” are written by two men that had established themselves as the two major folk poets of the renaissance who had similar objectives for their writing, and, subsequently, often similar styling. Thus, it might be better to say that the Harlem Renaissance came full circle from the time “Homesick Blues” was written in 1926 to when “Tin Roof Blues” was written six years later.