The sweet flypaper of life

By Roy DeCarava, Langston Hughes

Subjects: POETRY / American / African American, PHOTOGRAPHY / Individual Photographers / Monographs, Artistic collaboration, New york (n.y.), pictorial works, Photography, artistic, African Americans, Views, Afro-Americans, Pictorial works, Poetry and the arts, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, Description and travel, African americans, new york (state), new york

Description: The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955) is the result of a collaborative effort between photographer Roy DeCarava and writer Langston Hughes. Their unique fusion of words and images provides an opportunity to examine how the two media can be brought together to form composite modes of expression. DeCarava and Hughes’s work reveals their deft command of both African American and Western cultural practices, which they employ to forward their vision of black Americans as full participants in American life and culture.