“Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.”
"Song for a Dark Girl" (l. 1-4), from Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
“7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.”
Source: The Collected Poems
“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
Source: The Collected Poems
“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.”
"Dreams," from the anthology Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers, ed. Arna Bontemps (1941)
“Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.”
"A Note on Humor", from The Book of Negro Humor https://books.google.com/books?id=60FkAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Humor+is+laughing+at+what+you+haven%27t+got+when+you+ought+to+have+it.%22, p. vii (1966)
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?”
"Harlem"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Context: 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?
"I, Too, Sing America," in the magazine Survey Graphic (March 1925); reprinted in Selected Poems (1959)
“You are white —
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.”
"Theme from English B"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Context: You are white —
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me —
although you’re older — and white —
and somewhat more free.
Let America Be America Again (1935)
Context: Sure, call me any ugly name you choose —
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
"Theme from English B"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)