Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is one of the most beloved and celebrated American poets of all time. He published his first poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" inThe Crisis magazine in 1921. His first book of poems,The Weary Blues, which includes the poem "Dream Variation," was published byKnopf in 1926 when Hughes was only twenty-four years old. Hughes was an important leader of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s. During his lifetime, he was awarded aGuggenhiem Fellowship (1935), aRosenwald Fellowship (1940), and anAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters Grant (1947). In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote short stories, novels, memoirs, essays and plays.