Poetry Project Model
English Class
Ms. Johnson
Poem Selection
A 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?
Poem Selection
A 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?
Poem Analysis
The poem A Dream Deferred is about dreams being
postponed. The author talks about dreams as both
positive and negative. Some dreams do come true
for people, while others are delayed and never
become a reality. Langston uses words like sun, run,
dry, soar, explode, and sugar to create tone. Words
like run, soar, and explode are actions given to the
dreams, and allow for the tone to be playful and
serious at the same time. By using these words,
Langston’s attitude in the poem is both upbeat and
serious. In the end the poet shows how dreams can
be achieved or fallen. In the end we have to hold on
to dreams and believe in them or they’ll disappear.
Poem Analysis
The literary devices included in the poem, A Dream Deferred,
are simile, metaphor, and rhyme. Similes are noted
throughout the poem: “like a raisin in the sun,” “like a sore,”
like rotten meat,” “like a syrupy sweet.” An example of a
metaphor is in the last line of the stanza, “does it explode?”
Rhyme is the third literary device used by the poet. The
following words rhyme: sun-run, meat-sweet, load-explode.
These devices help the poem create meaning for the poem.
Langston offers a possibility of a negative affect. The first one
“Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun”: a raisin is already dry,
and as a raisin, it is a good thing, useful and healthy, but if a
raisin is left in the sun to dry up, it becomes hard and
impossible to eat; its value sucked out, it no longer serves its
useful, healthy purpose.
Song Selection
Keep on Dreaming
Lyfe Jennings
Look outside your window
Tell me what you see
Past all the flowers
Beyond the trees
Is it what you wanted?
Your life to be
Or is it what you
Settle for
Is it cause they laugh at you…
Song Language
Keep on Dreaming
Lyfe Jennings
Look outside your window
Tell me what you see
Past all the flowers
Beyond the trees
Is it what you wanted?
Your life to be
Or is it what you
Settle for
Is it cause they laugh at you…
• Metaphor=Rumor on the
streets; listen to your heart
• Repetition=keep on
dreaming; keep on; don’t
stop; maybe you
• Hyperbole=he den murdered
his dreams
Song Analysis
In the song “Keep on Dreaming,” the artist is pushing the human spirit to stay
motivated and confident. We as individuals must “look outside the
window…pass all the flowers…” and continue to fight for our dreams to
become a success. Although roses are always beautiful, they also always
have thorns that prick. Hence, love which is also beautiful will also prick
and result in pain. The writer goes on to explain how painful love is by
using a simile and metaphor in the fifth stanza. The writer respectively
compares the pain to a knife and then states that the pain is a scar.
I can still feel so much pain
Like a knife that cuts you the wound heals
but the scar, that scar remains
Clearly, the use of figurative language helps the listeners understand the
theme better. Of course any one can say that love hurts but to say that it
cuts like a knife not only expresses the intensity of the pain but also
conveys a very clear and strong message.
Song Analysis
• The literary devices included in the poem,
______(title) ________, are __(device #1)___,
__(device #2)___, and __(device #3)___.
__(device #1)___ is used ______(when)____.
An example of __(device #2)___, is when
“______(quotes)____.” __(device #3)___, is
used in ______(line what)_______. These
devices help the poem create
______(what)___. In addition, it adds to the
meaning of the poem, _____(which is).