Harlem by Hughes

"Harlem" by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And the run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

This is one of my favorite poems of all time. The first time I was introduced to it was when reading the play "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry. This poem appears at the front of the book and is very fitting with the plot of the play. The play is about an African-American family living in Chicago during the 1950s. The family comes into some money and all the members want to spend it on something different. All the things the members want are part of dreams that they had put of for most of their lives. This poem was perfect to set the tone. Hughes wrote this during the Harlem Renaissance, focusing on the "bloody summer" of 1919. During this time, African-Americans were on the quest for racial equality and in search of self-identity. "Harlem" asks the question: what happens when your dream has been limited, put off, or lost? Asking "what happens to a dream deferred?" the poem sketches a series of images of decay and waste, representing the dream (or the dreamer's) fate. While many of the potential consequences affect only the individual dreamer, the ending of the poem suggests that, when despair is epidemic, it may "explode" and cause broad social and political damage.

Many African-American poets and writers had avoided portraying lower-class black life because they believed such images fed racist stereotypes and attitudes. Langston Hughes believed that people deserved to understand the other side of the color spectrum. With his poems, he found a way to make them African-American with their rhythms, images, diction, and allusions. By doing this, I feel like he was empowering African-Americans instead of just complaining about the hardships they faced as a race. Overall, I really enjoy this poem every time I read it. And every time I read it, it makes me want to accomplish something big with my life because I don't want to find out what happens when a dream is deferred.