Poetry

Harlem – 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?

Harlem by Langston Hughes is an extremely well-known poem, one often taught by English teachers during Black History Month to illustrate the resilience of Afrikans in Amerikkka in a way that is palatable to a non-Afrikan audience. Despite its simplicity, this poem has stuck with me throughout highschool and into college as one of my favorite poems. 

Hughes opens the poem with the poignant question, “What happens to a dream deferred?”, and though the answer is never explicitly stated, it is clear what he believes the answer to be. It does not “dry up,” “fester,” “stink,” “crust and sugar over,” “sag,” or any other images of decay that Hughes presents us with. These descriptions call back to plantation life, with the planting of sugar cane, the untreated wounds of the slaves, and the “heavy load” that slaves were forced to bear both physically and mentally. Organic matter may suffer from decay, just as our own bodies will eventually, but dreams are not bound by time and impermanent flesh. Dreams are carried throughout generations, written down, spoken aloud, and carried in the soul rather than the body. Thus, when Hughes ends his poem with the question, “Or does it explode?”, we know the answer.

The last line of Harlem is often dismissed as referring to riots. Though it is a valid interpretation, it can easily fall under the assumption that Afrikans are inherently violent. They will “explode” in anger and irrationality in the face of the perpetuated oppression they have dealt with. However, an explosion can be read in ways beyond acts of violence, such as “the rapid growth of a population and the breakdown of a misconception, as when someone or something “explodes” a cultural myth, fantasy, or deeply held assumption,” as is expressed by professor Scott Chanceller at the College of William & Mary. It can be an explosion of culture, arts, and expression like the Harlem Renaissance. It can be an explosion in that it reverberates across ethnic divides and impacts other marginalized communities. 

One of my favorite aspects of Harlem is that it is so much bigger than Harlem. There were references to the Great Migration in Harlem in the original drafts of the poem, but I believe they were omitted because Hughes realized the universality of his statement. Afrikans everywhere have experienced “a dream deferred,” and many currently have dreams that are being deferred. In America, it seems that all of the promises that this flawed country has purported to us have been deferred since the beginning of the Afrikan American population. But therein lies the beauty of Harlem, a message that has resonated and will continue to resonate with Afrikans and speak to their resilience. 

If We Must Die – Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; Then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Red Summer, 1919 was a time of bloodshed and white supremacist vigilante violence against Afrikan Americans across the United States. This era of anti-black (Afrikan) violence was scattered across the United States orchestrated by white hatred with the movement of Afrikan Americans across the Mid and Northeast United States looking for jobs within white dominated industries. As resentment rose, so did the self-victimization of whites as a rationalization for starting these terror attacks on working class and poor Black communities in their proximity. Structured as a Shakeperean sonnet, McKay’s words of resistance and militancy linger amongst the many movements for liberation. In facing suppression, besiegement, and death, the struggle against and defeating the common foe of subjugation is a struggle that is glorious and noble.  This poems’ popularity is not one that is historic and timelined. These words ring loud with the Afrikan people facing genocide in Congo and Sudan, those facing the blockades in Haiti, Cuba, and neocolonialism throughout the Carribean and Afrikan continent, within the walls of penitentiaries and militarization in the imperial core, with the people of Palestine, with Refaat Alareer’s, prose on death and life, we will remain to honor the struggles of those before us and continue to their struggle til we defeat the common foe. 

If I Must Die – Refaat Alareer

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself–

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale