Tuesday, January 17, 2017

January 17: Famous Writer, Langston Hughes, "Dream Deferred"

We all have dreams.   I dreamed about being a famous writer.  Bestseller Lists.  National Book Awards.  Pulitzer Prizes.  Nobel Prize.  Stay-at-home husband and father.  Distinguished teacher.  Literary diplomat.

And what have I attained?  I'm a writer.  Not quite famous.  No bestsellers or Pulitzer Prizes to my credit.  I'm a professor.  Not quite distinguished.  I've been nominated a few times for Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.  That doesn't make me a diplomat.

One of my favorite films is It's a Wonderful Life.  It's about a man who had big dreams.  A man who sees those dreams deferred in the service family and friends.  He makes sacrifices, and those sacrifices are what give his life meaning.

Saint Marty may not be William Faulkner or Ernest Hemingway, but, as George Bailey learned, no man is a failure who has friends.

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 comment:

  1. To those of us who are the George Baileys of the world: we are the backs and shoulders on which great things are built ;-)

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