Langston Hughes

Montage of a Dream Deferred

"In terms of current Afro-American popular music in the sources from which it has progressed-- jazz, ragtime, swing, blues, boogie-woogie, and be-bop-- this poem on comtemporary Halem, like be-bop, is marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages sometimes in the manner of the jam session, sometimes the popular song, punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and the disc-tortions of the music of a community in transition." --Langston Hughes

This is a long poem, consisting of many shorter poems about Harlem-- different sections, different neighborhoods, etc. Most people only know one of the short poems included, which I've included here also. Here are three poems from the montage... the first, the last, and the most popular (which incidentally, is close to the end of the montage).

BOOGIE SEGUE TO BOP

Dream Boogie

Good morning daddy!
Ain't you heard
the boogie-woogie rumble
of a dream deferred?

Listen closely:
you'll hear their feet
beating out and beating out a--
You think
It's a happy beat?

Listen closely:
Ain't you heard
something underneath
like a--
What did I say?

Sure,
I'm happy!
Take it away!
Hey, pop!
Re-bop!
mop

Y-e-a-h!

LENOX AVENUE MURAL

Harlem

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?

Island

Between two rivers,
north of the park,
like darker rivers
the streets are dark.

Black and white,
gold and brown--
chocolate-custard
pie of a town.

Dream within a dream
our dream deferred.

Good morning, daddy!

Ain't you heard?