Poem Post

I'm going to pick Langston Hughes' "Dream Deferred." I've studied Robert Frost and Maya Angelou in high school, so I am quite familiar with their poetry. I want to try something new. I don't believe I've really read anything by Hughes before. I know that he was one of the major forces during the Harlem Renaissance. From this, I assume that in the poem "Dream Deferred" he is talking about many different kinds of dreams. One of these is the African Americans' dreams for a better future and more opportunities. Another, although related to the first, is the American Dream of improving yourself and achieving whatever you want in a "free" land. Hughes probably knew how hard it was to get a job as a black person and all the obstacles that blacks faced. White people "deferred" African Americans' "dreams'" by denying their basic human rights and treating them as if they were objects or less than dirt. In this way, their dreams and aspirations become self-deprecating mirrors of what whites said they could be. Another type of dream Hughes refers to is the personal goals of each individual and the hopes we had as children being shelved because of fears of an unknown future or rejection. The ability to dream as we were children.

Hughes compares lost dreams to many images of decaying and rotting foods. Fresh food is supposed to be good for the soul, rotten food causes us to become sick and possibly might cause infections or fatal diseases. the same thing happens when we give up our dreams- they fester inside of us and we become corrupted with our own self-loathing and pity for giving up what we really wanted to accomplish. We live with the regrets of either failure, missed opportunity, and sometimes fear at what we could have been. Many dreams remain as just dreams because no one tried for it or wanted it enough to pursue them. Still other dreams fade away and are let go because they seem unrealistic or impossible to become reality. Then there are the ones that might "explode" because we kept it in too long, letting the dream fester and build itself up like a tumor that expires within its host when it becomes too large to bear. Never living up to our own expectations of what kind of life we wanted or could have lived eats away and corrodes us until there is nothing left, or until we are fed up with it and then explode merely because there is nothing to hold onto anymore. I think Hughes accomplishes his effect on his readers through his image poetry, making the audience think they're not like that, but in fact every one has let go of something they dreamed of as children. Growing up makes our dreams decay and rot, it's not just passed up chances or blowing an opportunity that destroys dreams. If we don't believe in them, then of course our dreams will corrupt us because they have no where to go to become real. So instead, they eat us up inside out.

This was a nice assignment, it gets me in touch with poetry again. I think I'm going to write some poetry on my blog, too.