In 1951, Langston Hughes, crowned the poet laureate of Harlem, asked

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?

A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry's masterpiece, was one answer to Hughes' fundamental question.

Langston Hughes. "Harlem." Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Vintage, 1959.

© 2012 Penumbra Theatre