Sail Away

by Langston Hughes, illustrated with collages by Ashley Bryan

The great African-American poet Langston Hughes penned poem after poem about the majesty of the sea, and the great African-American artist Ashley Bryan, who’s spent more than half his life on a small island, is as drawn to the sea as much as he draws the sea. Their talents combine in this windswept collection of illustrated poems–from “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” to “Seascape”, from “Sea Calm” to “Sea Charm”–that celebrates all things oceanic.

Daniel Kany profiled Ashley Bryan in Kolaj #12. He wrote:

While he is an active painter, Bryan is dedicated to collage. In his forthcoming book, Sail Away,…poems by Langston Hughes accompany Bryan’s latest collages. While Bryan humbly notes that artists like Lois Ehlert and Eric Carle have been sources of inspiration for him, the works of Sail Away go far past the use of collage as a form of drawing with coloured shapes primarily geared towards rendering exquisite objects.

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ABOUT THE BOOK
Sail Away
by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Ashley Bryan
10.5″x9″, 40 pages
illustrated
ISBN: 978-1-48143-085-2
$22.99 Canada and $19.99 US
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, New York, 2015

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Image:
Illustration by Ashley Bryan for Langston Hughes’ “Long Trip”
from Sail Away
2015
Courtesy of the Ashley Bryan Center, Islesford, Maine