© 2022 Poetry Foundation. 61 West Superior Street, Chicago, IL 60654
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?
Langston Hughes, "Harlem" from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.
Source: 1990
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"Harlem" by Langston Hughes, as read by Danny Grover as part of a May 2, 2007, reading from Voices of a People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove).
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James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. If you are a copyright holder that would like something removed from my channel please message me on YouTube & I will respond so you do not need to file a DMCA Copyright Takedown Request with YouTube. Thank You. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
Langston Hughes Reads His Poetry!
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“Autobiography of a Nuyorican” by Sandra Maria Estevees
© 2022 Poetry Foundation. 61 West Superior Street, Chicago, IL 60654
Autobiography of A Nuyorican
for Lela
Half blue, feet first
she battled into the world.
Hardly surviving the blood cord twice wrapped,
tense around her neck. Hanging.
Womb pressing, pushing,
pulling life from mother’s child.
Fragile flesh emerging perfect in blueness,
like the lifeline that sustained her,
yet limp, almost a corpse.
Her mother claims the virgin interceded.
Invoked through divine promise, in prayer,
that caused her dark eyes to open,
her tongue to taste air like fire,
as the blueness faded,
tracing death on the tail of eclipse.
And as in birth from her darkness,
the free-giving sun inched slow to visibility,
revealing all color and form,
a great teacher, generous and awesome,
silent and reverent, loud and blasphemous,
constant,
sculpting edges of definition
in the shadow and light of multiple universes.
Half blue, feet first
she battled her way.
The world did not want another brown,
another slant-eyed-olive-indian-black-child.
Did not want another rainbow empowered song
added to repertoire in blue,
or azure, or indigo,
or caribbean crystal.
Did not want another mouth to feed,
especially another rock-the-boat poet,
another voice opened wide,
fixed on a global spectrum of defiance.
The meaning of war defined her. Gasping and innocent,
before she knew her mother,
before she discovered herself, barely alive,
gathering weapons into her being with each breath that filled her,
growing stronger,
determined
to beat all the odds.
Sandra Maria Esteves, "Autobiography of a Nuyorican" from Bluestown Mockingbird. Copyright © 1990 by Sandra Maria Esteves. Reprinted by permission of Arte Público Press.
YouTube: 688 views Aug 28, 2010
"Autobiography of a Nuyorican," poem by Sandra María Esteves in concert with The Ibrahim González Trio. Desmar Guevara on piano, Ray Martínez on bass, and musical composition & direction by Ibrahim González. Excerpt from PORTAL, A Journey in Poetry & Music, performed on September 28, 2007 for OVATIONS, School of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Springfield Technical Community College, Springfield, MA. A Culture Diva Production © 2010.
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