Deferred: Langston Hughes

My most memorable academic years are those of junior high school.  School felt like a family to me. I was enrolled in a bilingual program, so all of my subjects (except English class) were conducted in Spanish. I was given the opportunity to recite this amazing poem. This experience is vividly etched in my conscious memory

___________

 Deferred

By Langston Hughes

(From a Montage of Poems: Harlem)

 This year, maybe, do you think I can graduate?

I’m already two years late.

Dropped out six months when I was seven, a year when I was eleven,

then got put back when we came North,

To get through high at twenty’s kind of late - But maybe this year I can graduate. 

 Maybe now I can have that white enamel stove 

I dreamed about when we first fell in love 

eighteen years ago. 

But you know, 

rooming and everything

then kids, 

cold-water flat and all that. 

But now my daughter’s married 

And my boy’s most grown - 

quit school to work - 

and when we’re moving 

there ain’t no stove -

Maybe I can buy that white enamel stove!

Me, I always did want to study French. 

It don’t make sense - 

I’ll never go to France,

but night schools teach French. 

Now at last I’ve got a job 

where I get off at five, 

in time to wash and dress, 

so, s’il vous plait, I’ll study French! 

Someday, 

I’m gonna buy two new suits 

at once! 

All I want is 

one more bottle of gin.

All I want is to see 

my furniture paid for. 

All I want is a wife who will 

work with me and not against me. 

Say, baby, could you see your way clear? 

Heaven, heaven, is my home! T

his world I’ll leave behind 

When I set my feet in glory I’ll have a throne for mine!

I want to pass the civil service.

I want a television set. 

You know, as old as I am, I ain’t never owned a decent radio yet?

(1951)