Poetry is disruptive.  If it does not “disrupt” then it is not doing its job; non-disruptive poetry treads only in the shallow waters of the heart.  But here is a poem that is from the depths of the heart and dives directly into my heart.  It is very disruptive to me, “disruptive as hell” in a very real sense, for it shocks, threatens, and jars the myriad preconceptions in which I’ve spent my life.  And one who spends his “three-score and ten” trapped in his preconceptions is living in a hell of some sorts. Hughes, like all poets, knew about dreams and the temptation to stifle them.  Even more so, poets like Hughes who was a black man living in the 20^th century, knew the oppressive system of racism stifling the dreams of black men and women in America.

HARLEM 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?