“Harlem” is a free verse poem organized into four mostly irregular stanzas. The poem doesn’t use a prescribed metrical pattern, but there is a strong sense of rhythm throughout. Short lines punctuate and longer lines glide. End-line punctuation creates subtle interruptions. “Does it dry up” (Line 1) is followed by “like a raisin in the sun?” (Line 2). The space between lines allows the reader to consider possibility and highlights the speaker’s considered responses.

Though there isn’t a formal rhyme scheme, Hughes uses playful end rhymes: sun/run, meat/sweet, load/explode and half-rhymes like sugar/fester/defer. The natural lift in the inflection of the questions provides a lightness of tone. The musical effects are euphonious—a pleasant set of sounds that offer a contrast to the uncomfortable imagery.

The speaker’s uses different registers to navigate its big question. On one level, the voice sounds academic. The opening uses the language of philosophic inquiry. The diction feels formal and distant: “What happens to a dream deferred?” (Line 1)—an opening line that sounds like it is introducing an abstract disquisition.