# Reading > Poems, Poets, and Poetry >  Dream Deffered By Langston Hughes

## JessMcBess

_What Happend to a dream deffered?

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 sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?_



Okay so I have a real hard time in English and I really need help trying to decipher the inner meaning of it, if there is one.

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## AdoreroDio

I love that poem. I just read it in English recently.

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## AdoreroDio

meaning..hmmm..
Well the dream it is talking about is the dream of Blacks receiving freedom from racism. It was written in the 1930s when racism was still strong. Its pretty much a warning to everyone of what might happen if racism lives on. Will it explode?

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## JessMcBess

OMG, that made so much more since. Thanks alot. I really question my intellegence somtimes :/

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## AdoreroDio

Your welcome, but don't question your intelligence. That was the result of 10 minutes discussing it in an Honors English class.

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## Redzeppelin

> _What Happend to a dream deffered?
> 
> 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?
> ...


The poem works on multiple levels. On the one hand it could refer to the struggle/dream for Black equality; on the other hand, it could also be about the dreams that _anybody_ has and must put off for whatever reason. Think about those stories you hear about successful CEOs who give up 6 figure incomes to go do the less lucrative (but more satisfying) career/hobby that they always _really_ wanted to do. Hughes asks: how long can you put off your dreams before something happens to them? He suggest they have a "shelf life" of sorts.

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## ktd222

> Hughes asks: how long can you put off your dreams before something happens to them? He suggest they have a "shelf life" of sorts.


Yes. But I would take a look at the image illustrations, and the senses that are affected by those illustrations. See how the images are becoming more and more unrecognizable as you read on down. The speaker's voice is not one of authority, but one of uncertainty. Look at how that tone changes throughout the poem.

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## Virgil

> _What Happend to a dream deffered?
> 
> 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?
> ...



Jess, I think this poem is one that tells exactly what it means. It provides imagery on what a dream (equality for African-Americans) that goes unfulfilled. Drys up, festers, stinks, crusts, sags, and finally for the climatic punch it explodes into rage.

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## ShoutGrace

> The poem works on multiple levels.


I agree. I don't think that the meaning of the poem needs to be restricted to the plight of African Americans fighting for equality (and I'm not saying anybody has done that, necessarily).

Lorraine Hansberry used this theme of "dream deferment" in her play (the title of which, of course, is also derived from the poem) _A Raisin In The Sun_. I think it worked very well there (the deferment of a dream on a personal, individual level). Also interesting is the fact that the play explores the overarching theme of black equality as well.

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## Virgil

> I agree. I don't think that the meaning of the poem needs to be restricted to the plight of African Americans fighting for equality (and I'm not saying anybody has done that, necessarily).


Well, that's true, but given the author is black, given the sensitivity that African-Americans have toward the dream of equality (Martin Luther King, "I Have A Dream" speech), and given the recurring theme of rage ("explode") as a reaction within African-American literature, I do think the poem is centered on African-American experience.

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## ktd222

> Well, that's true, but given the author is black, given the sensitivity that African-Americans have toward the dream of equality (Martin Luther King, "I Have A Dream" speech), and given the recurring theme of rage ("explode") as a reaction within African-American literature, I do think the poem is centered on African-American experience.


If you get into this way of thinking about a poem, will you ever see the poetic workings that the poet utilizes?

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## Virgil

> If you get into this way of thinking about a poem, will you ever see the poetic workings that the poet utilizes?


Come on ktd, that's an overstatement.  :Wink:  The writer's culture (an African-American is a sort of sub-culture; perhaps it shouldn't be but it is) is part of understanding his writing. If you strictly looked at the poem without taking his culture into context, then you would miss how two words are "loaded" differently for African-Americans: "dream," and "explode." This doesn't exclude reading the poem as you have. 

Can we read and fully understand and appreciate Shakespeare without understanding the diction nuiasances of his culture?

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## ktd222

You come on. Dont tell me to come on. :Biggrin:  
Imagine having to do cultural/background research for every poem you read. Hmmm. yawn. I can understand and appreciate this poem by viewing dream in its general sense. What makes this poem work - and memorable, - is not the fact that one needs understand its cultural roots, but that the poem is set up so as to emphasize how great the lost of a dream is, when it is deferred. It doesnt matter which culture an individual is from; a dream exploded  is equally important as to whom it happened to.

Might I quote this great person. Do you dare disagree :FRlol:  


_History plays the minor role
in poems, as do the page
and words on the page are 
not the same.

If than, then I sit and pick
my nose to know that words
did not matter so; but let
my thoughts run wild with
the naked man that doesn't
need clothes for support._

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## Virgil

> Imagine having to do cultural/background research for every poem you read. Hmmm. yawn.


Yes, I know, but that's what College professor get paid to do. Yawn...And that's why I'm not a college professor.  :Wink:  




> but let
> my thoughts run wild with
> the naked man that doesn't
> need clothes for support.


I think you're mind is just fixated on naked men. 
 :Biggrin:   :FRlol:

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## Redzeppelin

> Yes. But I would take a look at the image illustrations, and the senses that are affected by those illustrations. See how the images are becoming more and more unrecognizable as you read on down. The speaker's voice is not one of authority, but one of uncertainty. Look at how that tone changes throughout the poem.


Are you agreeing or disagreeing? Regardless of the senses affected, my point still stands - the poem's about desire and what happens when those desires are suppressed. I don't understand what you mean by the images becoming "unrecognizable" - I recognize them all fine. What am I not getting about the poem? Although the speaker expresses uncertainty, the voice of the author does not: he consciously chose his images to communicate the effects on a delayed/denied desire. As well, the poem is so short, where do you see the tone changing? His images may end up culminating in violence, but I'm confused as to how the tone changes? From what to what?

Hughes is a good poet, but I usually don't consider him a profoundly complex writer.

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## Basil

It might be instructive to remember that this poem was originally entitled *Harlem*, and that this is the title used in _The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes_, published in 1995. It appeared as "Dream Deferred" in a volume of Hughes's poetry published in 1959 (eight years after it was first published). I thumbed through three or four poetry anthologies at the bookstore earlier today, and it appeared as "Harlem" in each of them.

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## ktd222

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?_




> Are you agreeing or disagreeing?


I agree that the poem works on multiple levels. Thats it.




> Regardless of the senses affected, my point still stands - the poem's about desire and what happens when those desires are suppressed.


The poem is not about desire. It is about what happens to a dream when its deferred. Theres no desire in any of the illustrations used in the poem. Is there anything desirable about a deferred dream being compared to drying up like a raisin in the sun, or sags like a heavy load? There is nothing desirable in any of the images in the poem. If anything, what happens is the images move inward: becoming a burden of us 
Now when you say suppress, Im not sure that that is whats happening to the dream. Deferred means to put off, or postpone(meriam-webster)  which is whats happening in the poem: the speaker doesnt come out and just say that in one sentence deferring a dream will result in so and so. The speaker is showing, by deferring from stating explicitly, what a deferred dream becomes. While if the first line is: what happens to a dream suppressed?  it wouldnt make sense. What the dream is, is not stated. And so there is no such thing as suppressing nothing. 




> I don't understand what you mean by the images becoming "unrecognizable" - I recognize them all fine. What am I not getting about the poem?


What I mean is that if you look at each image brought up in the poem: there is a sort of affect and cause, initially. The affect being deferring. The cause being the result of deferring. So for example: the affect of deferring a dream can be represented as the sun. And the cause of this affect can be turning a raisin into a dried raisin. But if you move to the fourth image, the affect is missing: maybe it just sags like a heavy load. There is no deferring. The dream is not like likened to something, but something that carries a heavy load: indistinctness is evident. And then that something is lost when it explodes. Again no cause, just affect. The dream is not being likened to anything. It in a sense has moved away from comparability, to undefined forever. 




> Although the speaker expresses uncertainty, the voice of the author does not: he consciously chose his images to communicate the effects on a delayed/denied desire. As well, the poem is so short, where do you see the tone changing? His images may end up culminating in violence, but I'm confused as to how the tone changes? From what to what?


There is only one voice in this poem: the voice of the speaker. That is who is speaking these lines. Again, the speaker starts with a questioning, a sign of uncertainty of what happens to a dream when its deferred. The speaker doesnt directly explicate the result of a dream deferred: a further showing of the voices uncertainty. Then move to the second stanza: with its questioning, yet no question mark; a sign of uncertainty - yet certainty by phrasing a question in the form of a statement. And the last stanza with a single line italicized - which to me is another sign of emphasize: almost as if the dream is exploding, yet the question mark keeps the uncertainty present.




> Hughes is a good poet, but I usually don't consider him a profoundly complex writer.


Hughes is a great poet, a lyrical master, and careful poet. 



I hope I pasted all this on the proper way

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## ktd222

> Yes, I know, but that's what College professor get paid to do. Yawn...And that's why I'm not a college professor.


No decent professor would treat analysing poetry in such a way :Rolleyes:  





> I think you're mind is just fixated on naked men.


I'm still very impressionable. Do you want to scar me for life? :Blush:

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## Redzeppelin

> 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?
> ...


Well, Ok, but this sounds like hair-splitting to me. I have simply paraphrased the poem's initial question: What happens to a dream deferred? I interpret a "dream" as something one wants, something one _desires_. Hughes asks what happens when you can't have that dream, cannot achieve it, whatever. 




> Deferred means to put off, or postpone(meriam-webster)  which is whats happening in the poem: the speaker doesnt come out and just say that in one sentence deferring a dream will result in so and so. The speaker is showing, by deferring from stating explicitly, what a deferred dream becomes. While if the first line is: what happens to a dream suppressed?  it wouldnt make sense. What the dream is, is not stated. And so there is no such thing as suppressing nothing.


My use of "suppress" was inaccurate.




> What I mean is that if you look at each image brought up in the poem: there is a sort of affect and cause, initially. The affect being deferring. The cause being the result of deferring. So for example: the affect of deferring a dream can be represented as the sun. And the cause of this affect can be turning a raisin into a dried raisin. But if you move to the fourth image, the affect is missing: maybe it just sags like a heavy load. There is no deferring. The dream is not like likened to something, but something that carries a heavy load: indistinctness is evident. And then that something is lost when it explodes. Again no cause, just affect. The dream is not being likened to anything. It in a sense has moved away from comparability, to undefined forever.


I suppose, but I think what's going on is you and I are engaged in "dueling interpretations." Hughes asks a question and then proposes possible answers in the form of questions. Each image suggests a process that points to the effect on the dream from being deferred. In the first, the dream loses its life, its vitality and withers. In the second it becomes infected - the suggestion is that a deferred dream is like a wound, but not one that will heal; rather, its pain and "sickness" will only increase. In the third we have a similar image - that which once was healthy and nourishing is now rotting; it has passed it's time and cannot be "redeemed" back into its former condition. All three of these are a degeneration from one condition to another and each uninterrupted will lead to putrification. The fourth image is more difficult, but it is the "drying out" of something - a loss of its fluidity and a transition into a more "fixed" form. I can't comment too much on this one. The fifth image is an image of expectation: "sagging" implies that the dream is exerting a force more powerful than that which supports it; in the tension between the two forces, the dream is becoming heavier - more difficult to maintain, like a burden that may overwhelm its carrier. The sixth image implies that the dream contains an internal power/pressure that cannot be ignored - that deferrment may result in a pressure that will eventually breach the dream's "integrity."





> There is only one voice in this poem: the voice of the speaker. That is who is speaking these lines. Again, the speaker starts with a questioning, a sign of uncertainty of what happens to a dream when its deferred. The speaker doesnt directly explicate the result of a dream deferred: a further showing of the voices uncertainty. Then move to the second stanza: with its questioning, yet no question mark; a sign of uncertainty - yet certainty by phrasing a question in the form of a statement. And the last stanza with a single line italicized - which to me is another sign of emphasize: almost as if the dream is exploding, yet the question mark keeps the uncertainty present.


OK - I was inaccurate with my use of "voice." There is only one "voice" _in_ the poem, but Hughes' "voice" as the author is implicitly behind that poetic "voice" because he makes the poetic "voice" speak. And, personally, how do we know that the speaker of the poem is not asking _rhetorical questions_ to the reader - questions that may very well imply the consequences of deferring the dream? I like that interpretation better. I think the speaker knows what happens; he just wants the reader to start wondering.





> Hughes is a great poet, a lyrical master, and careful poet. 
> 
> I hope I pasted all this on the proper way


I like Hughes, and everything you said I agree with - I just don't think he's tremendously complex. That's not an insult.  :Smile:

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## Virgil

> I like Hughes, and everything you said I agree with - I just don't think he's tremendously complex. That's not an insult.


I have the same reaction to Hughs, I like him but he doesn't overwhelm me.

But I must disagree with you Red. I think this isn't any old dream. I guess if one didn't know anything abut the author one can read it as any old dream. But the last line "Or does it explode?" would really lack any significance. At one time I dreamed of being an astronaut. Well, the failure of that dream to come true would never reach a crises of explosion. The "explode" carries the meaning of rage and riot and injustice. Also "deferred" carries historical significance. After the civil war, we had to deferr true equality to pacify a certain section of society to keep a level of social harmony. True equality had to be deffered until the civil rights laws of the 1960s. The poem is filled with allusions through diction to the African-American experience.

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## Redzeppelin

> I have the same reaction to Hughs, I like him but he doesn't overwhelm me.
> 
> But I must disagree with you Red. I think this isn't any old dream. I guess if one didn't know anything abut the author one can read it as any old dream. But the last line "Or does it explode?" would really lack any significance. At one time I dreamed of being an astronaut. Well, the failure of that dream to come true would never reach a crises of explosion. The "explode" carries the meaning of rage and riot and injustice. Also "deferred" carries historical significance. After the civil war, we had to deferr true equality to pacify a certain section of society to keep a level of social harmony. True equality had to be deffered until the civil rights laws of the 1960s. The poem is filled with allusions through diction to the African-American experience.


I would totally agree with you. I think to read the poem and ignore Hughes' race and the historical-social context strips the poem of its ultimate power. But - there are many "dreams" that people have that could result in a sort of "explosion" - it kind of depends upon what the dream is and how tied it is to our sense of who we are and our meaning in this universe.

As a literature teacher, I would never dismiss the context of the poem's author and historical frame; I just believe that great literature speaks even without that "specialized" knowledge. Literature, I believe, should speak without the aid of a professor or Cliffs Notes. It may not speak as "loudly" as it would with that extra knowledge, but it still speaks.

(PS: I'm so bummed that nobody is posting in the _Taming of the Shrew_ discussion...what's up with that?)

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## Virgil

> (PS: I'm so bummed that nobody is posting in the _Taming of the Shrew_ discussion...what's up with that?)


I don't know. I'm guilty too. I haven't kept up. But I will finish it.

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## ktd222

> I have simply paraphrased the poem's initial question: What happens to a dream deferred? I interpret a "dream" as something one wants, something one desires. Hughes asks what happens when you can't have that dream, cannot achieve it, whatever.


I can understand your point. To me, Hughes is asking: what happens to a dream when its deferred? I think the difference between this statement and your statement is that this one implies a degree of control: that if one does not achieve his/her dream they can just postpone it. 




> There is only one "voice" in the poem, but Hughes' "voice" as the author is implicitly behind that poetic "voice" because he makes the poetic "voice" speak.


But you cant do that. To do that is to remove the identity and voice of the speaker. To say the speaker speaks this way because the author wants him to - renders the speakers voice powerless. 




> And, personally, how do we know that the speaker of the poem is not asking rhetorical questions to the reader - questions that may very well imply the consequences of deferring the dream? I like that interpretation better. I think the speaker knows what happens; he just wants the reader to start wondering.


We dont. That could very well be whats happening. I think there is enough in the poem to prove that interpretation as well. Both interpretations are supportable in my view. 




> I like Hughes, and everything you said I agree with - I just don't think he's tremendously complex. That's not an insult.


God! I wish someone would say that about my work. The part about it not being insulting :Biggrin:

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## Redzeppelin

> But you cant do that. To do that is to remove the identity and voice of the speaker. To say the speaker speaks this way because the author wants him to - renders the speakers voice powerless.


The speaker in a poem is a mask/persona/mouthpiece of the author; the speaker may voice the author's beliefs/opinons/ideas or s/he may voice the opposite. But either way, the character speaks because the author wills it. I must be missing some subtlety in your argument because characters do not create their beliefs or theirselves: the author creates them and gives them their voice. Because the poetic speaker is not a character per se, there is not specific way he must speak. The speaker's voice is powerful because his is the only one in the poem - but behind that voice is the creator who put those words - consciously - into the speaker's mouth. Are you telling me that the speaker decides what he is going to say against the author's will? Huh?

Help me out here - I'm feeling a bit dense right now.  :Brickwall:

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## ktd222

> The speaker in a poem is a mask/persona/mouthpiece of the author; the speaker may voice the author's beliefs/opinons/ideas or s/he may voice the opposite. But either way, the character speaks because the author wills it. I must be missing some subtlety in your argument because characters do not create their beliefs or theirselves: the author creates them and gives them their voice. Because the poetic speaker is not a character per se, there is not specific way he must speak. The speaker's voice is powerful because his is the only one in the poem - but behind that voice is the creator who put those words - consciously - into the speaker's mouth. Are you telling me that the speaker decides what he is going to say against the author's will? Huh?
> 
> Help me out here - I'm feeling a bit dense right now.


Im putting these thoughts together in my free moments, here and there, while at work. 
Please tell me if you need further clarification.

Im going to speak in general terms. A poet does not will whats written. A poet observestakes in what is observed and puts it into words. So you could say a poet is just the medium. The link in translating the scene into words  unaltered by the speaker. And in this way you could say this is what the poet seeks: truth(an unaltered translation of whats observed, into words). 
So this is the premise I take into account when reading a poem. The speakers voice doesnt necessarily represent the authors voice.

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## Redzeppelin

> Im putting these thoughts together in my free moments, here and there, while at work. 
> Please tell me if you need further clarification.
> 
> Im going to speak in general terms. A poet does not will whats written. A poet observestakes in what is observed and puts it into words. So you could say a poet is just the medium. The link in translating the scene into words  unaltered by the speaker. And in this way you could say this is what the poet seeks: truth(an unaltered translation of whats observed, into words). 
> So this is the premise I take into account when reading a poem. The speakers voice doesnt necessarily represent the authors voice.


OK - no clarification needed. I disagree with this interpretation. Authors consciously choose the contents of their literary creations. The idea you're presenting reminds me of the Homeric idea of the "muses" taking over - you know, that ancient Greek idea of the poet being a "conduit" of some sort. I get that idea, but I don't agree with it. The writer is an artist and the writer must choose how to illustrate the truth s/he observes. Granted, not every word may be carefully considered, but speakers speak what the author tells them to speak.

The truth may exist and the writer may only be the transmitter of truth, but the writer chooses _how_ to transmit that truth. Hughes is creating a variation on a theme, because he's certainly not the first to address the idea of denied dreams. W.H. Auden defines a poem as a "verbal contraption" - I agree: it is a machine made out of words that the poet creates. 

My post indicated that I understood that the speaker does not always speak "for" the poet in terms of "my thoughts/beliefs are the artist's." I get that too. We'll probably not agree on this point. I don't put much stock in the Romantic idea that a poem is a "spontaneous expression of the imagination" (not to say you're in this category  :Smile:  ); I prefer the more Modernist idea that the poet is an artist who carefully crafts his work. Either is acceptable, but I prefer the latter.

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## Virgil

> I don't put much stock in the Romantic idea that a poem is a "spontaneous expression of the imagination" (not to say you're in this category  ); I prefer the more Modernist idea that the poet is an artist who carefully crafts his work. Either is acceptable, but I prefer the latter.


I prefer the latter too.

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## ktd222

Yes, well put. If anything I can now fully understand that other side and am thinking about it, - which is a good thing :Smile:

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## Redzeppelin

> Yes, well put. If anything I can now fully understand that other side and am thinking about it, - which is a good thing


Phew! Thanks  :Smile:  - I was worried that I wasn't making any sense...(I worry about that a lot). Thanks - I've never spent that much time examining this poem - it was fun.

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## Il Penseroso

Damn, I may have jumped into this too late, but here goes.

Dream Variation
by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the bright day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes gently
Dark like me.
That is my dream.
To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun.
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening,
A tall, slim tree,
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.


I happened to notice this poem when I was looking up some biographical information (I know, the horror) on Hughes' relationship with the Talented Tenth movement of Du Bois, as the poem reminded me of this. His first volume of poetry was supposedly in sinc with the movement but as his class disillusionment deepened and he moved into Marxism he separated himself from it.

Anyhow, this poem strikes me with the contrasted lyricism when compared with "Dream Deferred".

The point I wanted to make with this is that it seems to lend historical vitality (not to be confused nor to trump personal vitality) to the questioning aspect of the speaker, perhaps with the questions of a "dream deferred" alluding to the conflict between action and artistic passivity contained, in my understanding, within the movement.

I also, by my interpretation, am a little uneasy with associating the explosion of the end particularly with rage, in light of the Talented Tenth information. It could be seen as Romantic spontaneity by the artist, or dreamer if you prefer. The last line seems the veritable question of the poem (other than the first) and seems personal to Hughes.



By the way, it's late, and if this doesn't make sense (I'm sure it doesn't) I plead insanity.

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## petethered

My tribute to Langston Hughes

"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly " LH

*Harlem Renaissance Man*

Passionate clear humane
Harlem renaissance product
subtle and ironic
humorous and prolific

perceptive representer of black
musics' emotions
through immersion in African-American culture
crying loud against racist Southern " Justice"
with words as weapons
Scottsboro boys
hypocritical philanthropists
Jim Crow YMCAS
"Coloureds not admitted" signs
no part in 4th of July speeches

The "Weary Blues" of black mens' souls
"laughin' to keep from cryin' "


"The human soul entire, sqeezed
like a lemon or a lime drop by drop,
into atomic words" LH

Peter Burton

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## julien

i love applying this poem to *Of Mice and Men*. so many dreams. so many dissapointments. so much heartache.

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## aemy

> _What Happend to a dream deffered?
> 
> 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?
> ...


What happens when something you really long for and/or dream about is indefinitely delayed, Jess?

Maybe not so much an "inner" meaning, as the increasingly vivid, distasteful, and finally destructive options - look at the sequence -when something that sounds sad but relatively simple ... really is NOT.

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## stickmouse

crap.. that poem was shellacked on burnt wood and hung in the hallway of my youth. My youth since departed, my dreams, some of them too.. But I keep a broken-winged bird as my pet. They stay put while others run away. (by the way..you write like a Lithuanian-American... bet I hit that one on the beak!)

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