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Poet: Langston Hughes (Langston Hughes Art)
Poem: Dream Deferred
Comment 61 of 61, added on April 22nd, 2009 at 6:28 PM.
i love it
chinuaik from Honduras
Comment 60 of 61, added on January 31st, 2009 at 10:51 PM.
No more syrupy sweets
A dream deferred hurts
Packed down like painful feet
Look in his eyes
when he speaks
Rushed and passed over
Like the stinch of rotten meat
Did you ever give the dream a chance?
Or just stared at the vision
like in a sleepers trance
Did you ever run the extra mile?
Or just talked yourself out of it
With an outward smile
Indeed its just a heavy load
sagging so low
Wanting to explode
If it doesn't find a place to go
it will melt
Like every winter snow
DeAndra Tanae from United States
Comment 59 of 61, added on December 10th, 2008 at 11:35 PM.
This poem has been very salient for me ever since I first came across it, like, ten years ago. I didn't get it until I was older, until I had a dream that got deferred and then realized that I wanted to do something about it. I think the dream explodes when you want to do something about it. Otherwise it just sits there in the sun, wrinkling like a raisin. Or you get bitter about the dream you never fulfilled and it becomes like a festering, infected sore; it becomes a source of pain for you because the fact that you never fulfilled it is a sign that you failed. Or you chase one substitute dream instead of the real dream, and you show off your attainment of that dream as if everything were perfect, as if life was so sweet, but in reality you failed at getting the real dream. But when you focus on your dream, you roll up your sleeves, you hunker down and do the damn thing, and you become an exploding source of power and motivation. Yeah, that's what I think Hughes is saying.
Munky from United States
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Comments
i love it
chinuaik from Honduras