Hello there, I'm Langston
VIDEOGRAPHER, PHOTOGRAPHER, GRAPHIC DESIGNER, PODCASTER, WRITER, POET, MEDIA SWISS ARMY KNIFE
I’ve been writing since I was a sophomore in high school at the age of 16 when I found out the way to a woman’s heart might just be by rhyming words of sweet nothings onto sticky notes during class & passing it around. In all seriousness I was inspired at a young age by poets from the likes of Shel Silverstein, Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, & Langston Hughes. I never really thought anything I ever wrote or attempted to express to my audience would be well received, but writing poetry has always been soothing & an outlet for my emotions.
I guess this fondness for poetry all started from my curiosity of Shel Silverstein’s eccentric books “Where the Sidewalk Ends” & “A Light in the Attic.” I found myself constantly checking out these two books regularly from my elementary school’s library. I was easily impressed by the simple rhymes, kooky illustrations, & how short each of the limericks was. This would carry on throughout my days in middle school were I acquired a certain taste in more profound talents from the likes of Robert Frost & Langston Hughes. It was then that I would come to find out that I enjoyed Langston Hughes’s raw & gritty take on black life & culture in his style of writing. As well as adoring Robert Frost’s ability to illustrate the beauty of such rural & realistic depictions of life.
I attempted sporadically to write poems just like these authors but I could never really grasp the same creativity or had any passion for the craft of poetry. With the use of YouTube tutorials & a few free online programs I would go on to educate myself in the field of media during the tail end of middle school well into my inception of high school. By then I was well proficient in the fields of photography, cinematography, partial graphic design, & well on my way to utilizing my audio engineering skills for voice over work. The writing bug had slowly crept up on me by then & a childhood friend had suddenly passed. Someone that was once close to me that had abruptly been no longer with us hit me harder than anything before. More than being bullied, ridiculed, or every other emotional loss I experienced before. This was the fuel that would engulf my sudden passion for the art of poetry.
I’d always wanted to publish a collective of poetic narratives since elementary school; not for the fame or riches but just to say I did it. I probably wrote over 70-80 poems on my old mini laptop & saved them on my very first flash drive. By 2012 during my first year of college undergrad my flash drive had been completely wiped clean from an error on my Toshiba laptop. The passion was soon gone & everything that I’d ever worked for was now just a pipe dream. I’d go on to graduate from the University of Missouri-St Louis during May in the year of 2016 receiving my bachelors in Media Studies. Two years later after fruitless attempts of kicking my multimedia freelance business off the ground I enrolled in Webster University majoring in new media production. My sole purpose of course to graduate receiving my masters, which would in turn possibly help me secure a job in my field.
Currently as I’m writing this on Wednesday March 18th 2020 I will be graduating in May to receive my degree, but from a random twist of fate after enrolling in a visual storytelling course I’ve regained my long lost passion for writing. My first poetry/ audio book “Misunderstood” is going to be a collective of my poetic narratives. Chronicling love, depression, & aspirations while conquering the fear of social anxiety. With the help of a local radio station I currently volunteer for (KDHX) I will be utilizing their equipment to record the voice over for my audio book. From the skills I’ve amassed at a young age from those old YouTube tutorials I will be designing my own cover, audio engineering my own book, & creating videos/animations for individual poems.
My biggest fear is being isolated in thought…
…without a single pen or pad to teach you what I was taught
Langston C. Ewing
May 31, 2019
I guess this fondness for poetry all started from my curiosity of Shel Silverstein’s eccentric books “Where the Sidewalk Ends” & “A Light in the Attic.” I found myself constantly checking out these two books regularly from my elementary school’s library. I was easily impressed by the simple rhymes, kooky illustrations, & how short each of the limericks was. This would carry on throughout my days in middle school were I acquired a certain taste in more profound talents from the likes of Robert Frost & Langston Hughes. It was then that I would come to find out that I enjoyed Langston Hughes’s raw & gritty take on black life & culture in his style of writing. As well as adoring Robert Frost’s ability to illustrate the beauty of such rural & realistic depictions of life.
I attempted sporadically to write poems just like these authors but I could never really grasp the same creativity or had any passion for the craft of poetry. With the use of YouTube tutorials & a few free online programs I would go on to educate myself in the field of media during the tail end of middle school well into my inception of high school. By then I was well proficient in the fields of photography, cinematography, partial graphic design, & well on my way to utilizing my audio engineering skills for voice over work. The writing bug had slowly crept up on me by then & a childhood friend had suddenly passed. Someone that was once close to me that had abruptly been no longer with us hit me harder than anything before. More than being bullied, ridiculed, or every other emotional loss I experienced before. This was the fuel that would engulf my sudden passion for the art of poetry.
I’d always wanted to publish a collective of poetic narratives since elementary school; not for the fame or riches but just to say I did it. I probably wrote over 70-80 poems on my old mini laptop & saved them on my very first flash drive. By 2012 during my first year of college undergrad my flash drive had been completely wiped clean from an error on my Toshiba laptop. The passion was soon gone & everything that I’d ever worked for was now just a pipe dream. I’d go on to graduate from the University of Missouri-St Louis during May in the year of 2016 receiving my bachelors in Media Studies. Two years later after fruitless attempts of kicking my multimedia freelance business off the ground I enrolled in Webster University majoring in new media production. My sole purpose of course to graduate receiving my masters, which would in turn possibly help me secure a job in my field.
Currently as I’m writing this on Wednesday March 18th 2020 I will be graduating in May to receive my degree, but from a random twist of fate after enrolling in a visual storytelling course I’ve regained my long lost passion for writing. My first poetry/ audio book “Misunderstood” is going to be a collective of my poetic narratives. Chronicling love, depression, & aspirations while conquering the fear of social anxiety. With the help of a local radio station I currently volunteer for (KDHX) I will be utilizing their equipment to record the voice over for my audio book. From the skills I’ve amassed at a young age from those old YouTube tutorials I will be designing my own cover, audio engineering my own book, & creating videos/animations for individual poems.
My biggest fear is being isolated in thought…
…without a single pen or pad to teach you what I was taught
Langston C. Ewing
May 31, 2019