*Langston+Hughes+-+Dream+poems


 * Harlem Renaissance video **
 * Langston Hughes mini-bio video **
 * Richard Cory -song **

//Langston Hughes// Bring me all of your dreams, You dreamer, Bring me all your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too-rough fingers Of the world.
 * The Dream Keeper **

by //Langston Hughes//
 * Dreams **

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

Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

Theme: Poetic devices:

Historical/cultural context: Culturally, Hughes most prolific writing period was in the late 1920s through the 1930s. He is considered among the most important of the movement called "The Harlem Renaissance." The Harlem Renaissance was composed of primarily African-American artists who "simultaneously expressed the desire for an integrated world and a warning to those who would try to keep the black race subservient." This poem expresses those sentiments. It is an encouragement for those oppressed by racism to continue the good fight and be assured that one day they will see their dreams become reality.

**Dream Deferred**

//By Langston Hughes //

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//?

1. .. __deferred__: Postponed, put off. 2. .. __ raisin __: A dried, sweet grape. The grape is dried by the sun or by a dehydrator. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;">3. .. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;">__fester__: develop pus; ulcerate
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica;">Notes **

Theme: Poetic devices:

Cultural/historical context: In 1951—the year of the poem's publication—frustration characterized the mood of American blacks. The Civil War in the previous century had liberated them from slavery, and federal laws had granted them the right to vote, the right to own property, and so on. However, continuing prejudice against blacks, as well as laws passed since the Civil War, relegated them to second-class citizenship. Consequently, blacks had to attend poorly equipped segregated schools and settle for menial jobs as porters, ditch-diggers, servants, shoeshine boys, and so on. In many states, blacks could not use the same public facilities as whites, including restrooms, restaurants, theaters, and parks. Access to other facilities, such as buses, required them to take a back seat, literally, to whites. By the mid-Twentieth Century, their frustration with inferior status became a powder keg, and the fuse was burning. Hughes well understood what the future held, as he indicates in the last line of the poem.