We know very little about the poem’s speaker. Not only do they never refer to themself using the first-person pronoun “I,” they also don’t reveal any information about their age, gender, or socioeconomic status. Although they also don’t explicitly reference their racial identity, the title of the poem indicates that the speaker likely lives in the historically Black neighborhood of Harlem. It’s therefore reasonable to conclude that the speaker is also Black. But perhaps more significant than the speaker’s racial identity or sense of belonging to the Harlem community is their detached way of speaking. Indeed, the speaker’s use of rhetorical questions throughout the poem creates a sense of detachment from their subject matter. We can perceive this detachment already in the poem’s opening line: “What happens to a dream deferred?” (line 1). The speaker never clarifies what dream this is, or to whom it might belong. The reader is left to assume that the dream must belong to the Harlem community in general, and hence also to the speaker. Even so, the speaker never explicitly confirms this connection.

It’s important not to misinterpret the speaker’s detachment for disinterestedness. Indeed, the speaker is very much concerned about Harlem’s future. If the speaker’s way of talking seems detached, it’s arguably because they anticipate a troubling future for the Harlem community. The entire poem is organized around the speaker’s opening question about a dream deferred. The lines that follow this initial query present a series of rhetorical questions, in which the speaker suggests several possible outcomes. Significantly, all the possible outcomes listed are negative: the dream could “dry up” (line 2), “fester” (line 4), “stink” (line 6), “crust and sugar over” (line 7), or “sag” (line 9). But in contrast to these possibilities, all of which entail slow processes, the speaker seems to believe that the real outcome will be more sudden and potentially violent: “Or will it explode?” (line 11). Whether that explosion will prove self-destructive or liberating remains to be seen. Regardless of the outcome, however, the speaker’s apparent detachment doesn’t signal a lack of concern. On the contrary, they speak in a detached way because they’re certain that the future will be turbulent and, in their trepidation an uncertainty, they want to keep their language somewhat reserved.

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