A Dream Deferred

The poem first asks "What happens to a dream deferred?" referring to what can be described as the American dream. It then describes what happens while your putting that dream off asking: "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" which is asking if its just going to die and never come around to amounting to what you wanted it to be. Then it talks of how it eventually becomes a heavy load that you put off until it explodes and never happens.

This poem was addressed to African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance in the aspect that many of them had lost focus on trying to make the American Dream become a reality. The writer believed that they kept putting off to try to just get by rather than work hard and rise above which eventually led to the dream never coming through.