During a time in America when no women, including African American women were encouraged to speak their minds, Lorraine Hansberry was chasing her dreams. She chased them, caught them and committed them to paper by writing one of the most poignant, endearing, and inspirational plays in American history. The time was the 1950's, and the name of play, A Raisin in the Sun was taken from a line of the Langston Hughes poem called:

Harlem

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?

You might say that Lorraine Hansberry's childhood was unique. Her parent's home was often visited by distinguished African Americans such as W.E.B. Dubois, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson and the very famous poet above, Langston Hughes! Lorraine made it clear how influential Langston Hughes had been in her life by writing an entire play based on the ideas in his poem.

A Raisin in the Sun asks its audience to consider such themes as racial discrimination, assimilation, generation gaps and dreams. Every character in Lorraine's play has a dream. Walter wants to be a successful business owner, Beneatha, wants to be a doctor, Ruth wants a house for her family, and Mama just wants a garden to grow her little plant. By connecting her play to Hughes' poem Harlem, Lorraine asks her audience to consider what happens to a dream deferred? What happens when we put them off for another day? The poem is symbolic of the absolute urgency her characters feel to make their dreams a reality. In reading A Raisin in the Sun, we realize Lorraine is showing us that even though we may not see how, there is more than one way for a dream to come true, but like the characters in her play, the consequences of putting off your dreams could be dire!

I can understand why Lorraine was so impressed by Harlem. The imagery allows us to experience how different people might feel if they put off their dreams. The poem is saying that without our dreams, we may rot, we may fester. We may just shrivel up and die! Not one image suggests hope or encouragement. Dreams are delicate and fruitful until they ignored.

Lorraine faced a great amount of adversity in her life as an educated African America woman, and yet she became the first black female playwright to see her play on Broadway! And this was during the civil rights movement when blacks and women were still fighting for equal rights! It's understandable why dreams were such an important theme in her work and in her life. Lorraine read this poem by her father's famous friend and became forever inspired and forever committed to making her dreams come true. Thanks to her poetic muse, Lorraine's dreams were not deferred!

Make Lorraine Hansberry your muse and your inspiration to make your dreams come true! Or find a poem or book that lights your dreams on fire and write to inspire others! And don't forget to tell us about it!

Yesterday afternoon, Americans took a moment before diving into a turkey feast to give thanks for the their blessings. Whether it was a thank you for being healthy or an A on a math test, yesterday was the day to say thank you. Well, today is the day to commit your gratitude to paper through the melodious meanderings of the Ode. An ode is typically a short poem that expresses your personal feelings about a person, an event or an object in nature. If you're the formal type, you might consider the classical ode but if you're like me, and Pablo Neruda, you may just want to rock it freestyle!  Seeing as how Thanksgiving marks the official holiday season and unofficial season of celebrating food, I humbly submit to you my:

Ode to Thanksgiving Sandwich
by Jennifer Hickey

Upon black Friday's wakening
In the bowels of Frigidaire
In Tupperware
In tinfoil
sleeps your delicious savory parts
secret is your potential to those
sans vision.
Oh the mighty Thanksgiving Sandwich
Leaning tower of turkey showered in juicy gravy bits atop a sesame roll.
Last night's dinner cannot hold a flame to your beauty.
Do we dare to rest your tender meat atop mayonaise?
Oh HECK yeah! 

Ahh ... the possibilities of stuffing and mashed potato;
both or just one?
And tarty colorful cranberry to tease and tickle tastebuds.
You are clearly an integral piece.
More gravy
More gravy
and cover with the top! 

A mess
A mess
beautiful sloppy mess
seeping out of the bread back
and plopping in my very loose and forgiving pajamas
dribbling from my chin and neck
staining my Pink Floyd tee shirt circa 1992
and I am oblivious!

I am devoured as I devour you my savory sweet dinner between bread
as I sit Indian style upon my couch
I am one
I am eternally thankful for this shameful face stuffing.
 

Thank you very much! Now it is your turn! Turn your blessings or favorite foods into an Ode and send them to us!

Most people agree that the best stories are those where the hero gets the girl and saves the day. This is probably because as we read, the obstacles the hero overcomes transfer to us and we get to be the hero! So if this is true, why would anyone want to write a story where the hero fails? Why write a tragedy?

Let's consider Shakespeare's Othello. This hero is an incredible man of great status; a general of a foreign army! Othello is respected by rich Venetian politicians, obeyed by his soldiers and loved by the most beautiful maiden in all of Venice. After capturing the fair Desdemona's heart and marrying her, he is sent back to war to defeat the Turks, which he does! But like all tragic heroes, Othello has an Achilles’ heel. Through Iago's evil cunning, Othello allows jealousy to cloud his reason. His jealousy causes him to lose a job, respect, his sanity, his love and finally, his life. So, other than imparting a valuable lesson, what exactly did Shakespeare gain from laboring over a five-act play that sees his hero fall from grace?

Perhaps we can assume that Shakespeare has lost a love or two to the green-eyed monster, just like Othello did? We can imagine that Shakespeare wrote Othello's tragic ending to feel better about his own hardships. And maybe he felt more of a sense of control after writing this play.

And maybe, Shakespeare got to experience Catharsis. This very awkward Greek word means to purge or get rid of pity or fear. Catharsis happens to everyone. Even little kids can read a bedtime story and experience catharsis.

Sometimes an author might write a tragedy so the reader can experience catharsis. Catharsis allows the reader to work through irrational fears. Sounds very psychological doesn't it? Well, there's a great amount of truth to the process. When was the last time you sat in traffic for hours only to discover an accident was the cause and you didn't look to see how bad it was? That's what I thought! You looked because you wanted to experience it from a safe distance.

Maybe the answer is simply because life is not always a romantic comedy and though we don't always kill our wives and commit suicide ... we do lose from time to time. It feels good to know that in losing, we can gain the lesson. Reading and writing tragedies allows us to cheat death and fight fears--that's something a romantic comedy can't hold a candle to!

In Connecticut, where I live, I awoke this morning to see ice on the pond and snow flurries dancing in the air. I love flurries, and I also love the word flurries. It is one of those magical words that perfectly fits the thing it names.

All words have sounds--or are sounds--whether we speak them aloud or hear them silently in our head. Onomatopoeia (on-uh-mat-uh-PEE-ya) words are those that imitate the sounds they describe, such as buzz, pop, meow, and hiccup. But I'm not talking about those kinds of words. Flurries, after all, don't make any sound at all.

How can a sound describe something soundless? There is another category of words that fit their subject in a more subtle way. Non-auditory onomatopoeia, you could call it. (However, even those kinds of words mimic an imaginary sound, rather than reflect an ineffable quality).

Flurries--say it--is soft and light. The singular, flurry, doesn't have a harsh or heavy consonant in it. No Js or Zs or Ks. Even its vowel sound, short U, is quiet. It doesn't howl, whine, or whoop. The Y sound at the end, the long E sound, is playful.

Flurries. Flying, floating, fluttering flurries. Winter's coming on.

What other words can you think of that fit their subject perfectly? Send us your examples with a brief explanation of why you think the word fits its subject.