Harlem (Dream Deferred) Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

We could talk about dreaming till the cows come home. We're all for it. But in this poem, our speaker seems to have noticed a disheartening trend – he's noticed that many people are deferring...

As he explores what happens when dreams are put on hold, our speaker uses a series of similes that compare the act of deferring dreams to that of raisins drying in the sun, meat rotting, sugary syr...

Our speaker hints at an underbelly to the world of dreams. When dreams are ignored, our speaker argues that the consequences can be really bad (even dangerous). Because of the time in which this po...