Tired

“Tired” was published in 1931, which means it appeared during the Harlem Renaissance, an intellectual and cultural revival of African American creative arts that generally dates from the 1920s until the mid-1930s. Although the poem doesn’t deal specifically with race, “Tired” adheres to the tenants of the Harlem Renaissance because it represents a confrontation with the ills of the world. One of the primary outcomes of the Harlem Renaissance was that Black writers felt empowered to confront the multiple injustices of society using an authentic voice. In “Tired,” Hughes directly addresses the world’s shortcomings in a distinctly melodious and plainspoken voice.

One can also analyze this poem within the literary context of Imagism. In the early-1900s, poets like Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, Hilda Doolittle (H. D.), and William Carlos Williams began to write poems that, as the name suggests, zeroed in on images. Imagists sought to create precise and clear poems through vivid images. Lowell’s “Falling Snow” (1917) and Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (1913) are two examples of Imagist poems. Both poets influenced Hughes, and their poetics are noticeable in “Tired.” In Lines 5-8, the image of cutting the world in half as if it is a fruit—and then evaluating the worms inside—continues the principles of Imagism.