"The Ballad of the Landlord" is a 1940 poem by Langston Hughes told almost entirely in dialogue, in which a tenant protests the condition in which the landlord has left the home they rent from him. Ultimately, the tension escalates, and the landlord calls the police on the tenant. The tenant, a Black person, is arrested, charged, and sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Although not one of Hughes's most famous poems, it is a poem widely said to reflect the poet's personal experience—Hughes struggled with his own landlords in the 1930s in Harlem—and one that showcases Hughes's mastery of voice and form, combining as it does traditional elements of the ballad and the characteristics of the...
