Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then 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?
Commentary
Not sure what exactly to say about this poem. It’s great, sad, and it seems to give me goose bumps every time I read it. It makes me ask “What is the American Dream, exactly?” and has it changed since the 1950’s when this poem was written?
Some of you may notice that the play “Raisin in the Sun” got its title from this poem and the two themes go hand in hand as well. I would suggest that anyone who hasn’t read or seen the play do so, it really is great.
— Garret
Minstrels Links
Langston Hughes:
Poem #410, The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Poem #990, Sea Calm
Poem #1006, Dream Deferred
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Priscilla Jebaraj · 24 February 2002
hey, i’d sent in this poem last month too. great to see it on the group. it’s my favourite langston hughes poem. i first read it as a preface to the play “raisin in the sun”. it’s a pretty good play, but somehow i’ve always liked the poem better. it puts into 11 short lines what the play takes pages to say.
the images are so graphic, so clear, so expressive, so…so disgusting. you almost wrinkle up your nose at the stink, taste the sickly sweetness, feel the dead weight.
and then comes that softly menacing last line…wondering, lingering…threatening…will it explode?
somehow too, this poem seems to me to express something about world events today. aren’t so many of the terrorist attacks of today, the explosion of a dream deferred?
priscilla.
Abi Luftig · 1 April 2002
This is one of my favourite poems of all times. And as such, I feel the need to correct all of you. The true title of this poem is not “Dream Deferred”. It is called “Harlem”. Hence it is a little easier to decipher what Hughes is talking about.
gaglerm · 18 April 2005
Well, actually the original title was Harlem, but it was later
changed to A Dream Deferred, and I’ve been trying to research and find out if it was changed back or when it was changed and I came across this web page. I must say I like what you all have to say, I’m writing a paper for my rhetoric and discourse class about the discourse in this poem, and how Hughes uses expressive language for persuasive purposes…starting with the original title Harlem.
TrishaCastillo · 24 May 2006
In some editions of Hughes’s poetry the title of this poem is “Dream Deferred,” not “Harlem.” It actually makes a difference on how the poem is read if the reader has no background knowledge of Hughes or the Harlem Renaissance.
Chris Thatcher · 3 March 2008
nope it is both “Harlem (A Dream Deferred)”