Harlem by Langston Hughes

On the R subway platform going north at Whitehall Street there is a girder whose peeling paint looked to me like a camel; it inspired me to recite Harlem by Langston Hughes although you won’t get to Harlem riding on the R; it goes into Queens. Is it the girder’s dream to be a camel and walk freely through a sunny desert?

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?

 

.The perfectly living poem above is called Harlem though many (including me) often seem to call it A Dream Deferred. Memorize it; it is wonderful to say: actually your mouth is moving but the poem is doing the talking: that’s how free and of itself it is.

 

Camel in the subway

.“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.” Langston Hughes

 

 

 

Langston Hughes

 

 

Portrait of Langston Hughes by Winold Reiss (1886-1953)

 

Sitting camel in the subway

21 Comments

  1. Posted 20 Mar ’15 at 11:52 am | Permalink

    Love your poem, Langston!!! Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful words. 🙂

  2. Devraj
    Posted 24 Jun ’15 at 11:08 pm | Permalink

    Beatiful, you have chosen the appropriate words to flow with it in sense……thanks for sharing such beautiful creation….

  3. Lila
    Posted 15 Oct ’15 at 10:43 am | Permalink

    A dream deferred whips around in your body throwing you up against walls.

  4. Posted 4 Mar ’16 at 12:55 am | Permalink

    Reading this was akin to a spiritual experience. I’m a poet very much inspired by Lanston Hughes and A Dream Deferred in particular. Thank you for bringing it back to my attention this morning.

  5. Dean
    Posted 4 Mar ’16 at 9:42 am | Permalink

    Sorry but it does not inspire me at all!! I must be missing something. It seems far more like somebody using words to show off, than a careful crafted piece of verse, but that may be my failure rather than the author’s.

    • Posted 4 Mar ’16 at 10:24 am | Permalink

      The same day you sent me your criticism, I also got this from another reader: “Reading this was akin to a spiritual experience. I’m a poet very much inspired by Langston Hughes and A Dream Deferred in particular. Thank you for bringing it back to my attention this morning.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think that Langston is an American master using the right amount of words, the right words with the right sounds, natural rhythms and pauses.

  6. Flora Sarker
    Posted 10 Apr ’16 at 11:08 pm | Permalink

    Beautiful, touchy, realistic !!!

  7. Sarada Kuchibhotla
    Posted 24 Nov ’16 at 11:55 am | Permalink

    Absolutely loved the way you brought Langston before the reader …Lovely sharing

  8. Posted 26 May ’17 at 11:35 pm | Permalink

    I was flabbergasted and swept off onto the rails

  9. Posted 29 Apr ’19 at 12:46 am | Permalink

    Thanks. Mr. Hughes capped off my day very nicely.

  10. Posted 25 Oct ’19 at 12:32 pm | Permalink

    Excellent it is! Enjoyable poem. Thanks dear.

  11. Posted 21 Nov ’19 at 12:47 pm | Permalink

    This is moving Don. What, indeed. Thanks for sharing.

  12. Posted 21 Aug ’21 at 11:43 am | Permalink

    I had been meaning to read this and watch these videos for a while and finally did this morning. Odd that I had just been talking with someone last night about the film “A Raisin in the Sun” (one of my favorites), based on the Lorraine Hansberry play, taking its title from this Langston Hughes poem. I loved that you matched the abstract image of a camel on the subway platform with this poem and sincerely appreciate the opportunity to hear your voice as well as the voice of Langston Hughes reading this poignant poem!

  13. Adam Cornford
    Posted 26 May ’22 at 2:07 pm | Permalink

    This poem, a classic by itself, is also the proem to Langston’s greatest work, the long serial poem or “album” *Montage of a Dream Deferred*–a portrait of Harlem immediately after WWII, with bebop interludes as well as lots of blues (as always). If you don’t know Montage, you should. In it’s clear-eyed compassion, broad human scope, brilliant musical ear, and occasional controlled fury, it’s one of the greatest poetic works ever to come out of the US, and firmly cements Langston Hughes as the Bard of Black America in the 20th century.

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