Making Meanings The Puppy

1. Which of the two poems comes closest to describing feelings you’ve had?

Shaping Interpretations

2. Look back at the details in Solzhenitsyn’s prose poem. Do you think this is only about a puppy or do you think it refers to a broader subject? Find details to justify your response.

3. The word deferred in line 1 of “Harlem” means “delayed,” “postponed.” What is the dream that is being postponed here?

4. What are the five similes that Hughes uses to restate the first question—that is, what does he compare a “dream deferred” to?

5. What final metaphor is implied when Hughes uses the word explode—what are we to understand that the dream might become? Why might a “dream deferred” one day explode?

6. Solzhenitsyn’s puppy prefers freedom to food. What people in history might agree with him?

7. “Harlem” was published in 1951. What conditions still exist that make this poem relevant to people’s lives today?

8. Read the article “Langston Hughes on the IRT” (see below), about the Langston Hughes poem that was posted in the subway for busy commuters to enjoy. Where else might poems be displayed? Which poems that you’ve read would you recommend for a public display?

Langston Hughes on the IRT
A Poem Arouses Many Feelings
Joe Sexton

The New York City Transit Authority’s program is called “Poetry in Motion,” and on this particular morning eight lines of Langston Hughes rumble along the length of the IRT No. 3 line.

Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy
Sometimes a bone
Is flung
To some people
Love is given
To others
Only heaven.

The poem, titled “Luck,” is in the last days of its singular urban life on Car No. 2000, which sits awash in filtered morning sunlight in the outdoor New Lots Avenue station in Brooklyn. It is scheduled to be taken down, replaced by poems No. 26 and 27 in the series that began sixteen months ago in the subways.