Countee Cullen Analysis

It is strange that two of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance could ever disagree as much as or be as different as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Despite the fact that they are the same color and lived during the same time period, they do not have much else in common. On the one hand is Hurston, a female writer who indulges in black art and culture and creates subtle messages throughout her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand is Wright, who is a male writer who demonstrates that whites do not like black people, nor will they ever except for when they are in the condition “…America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.” Hurston was also a less political writer than

This book is made up of two cycles of poems, each confronting the same subject: the characterization of a black man in white America. In this book, I plan to focus mainly on the first cycle and touch briefly on the second. The first cycle includes four different sections. In section one of cycle one, Eady writes about Susan Smith and Charles Stuart, two murderers who blamed their crimes on nonexistent black attackers. The first poem is called “How I Got Born” (Eady 5), in this poem the fictional young African American man is conjured up. In the upper right-hand corner of the page, Eady writes a note that explains who and what the speaker is: “The speaker is the young black man Susan Smith claimed kidnapped her children” (Eady 5). In the first few lines of the poem he says, “Susan Smith willed me alive/ At the moment/ Her babies sank into the lake” (l. 1-40). So right away he gives us a pretty straightforward explanation for what this poem is about and what this section will be about. In the next few poems, the narrator discusses his “existence” and reason for being created. Eady uses a lot of metaphors, similes and imagery in his poems, and he does a phenomenal job with imagery.

As we know, the result of “Art is” is “Art is” which returned in an ephemeral form at the Studio Museum. All forty photographs are on display on the basement level of the galleries, which are supposedly reserved for pieces in their permanent collection. The room just outside, whether coincidentally or not, is filled with photos of students - reflecting personal memories. How the museum decides to play with this, is by missing them with old-timer photos of Harlem from the

When writing a collection of poems, most poets chose to focus on maintaining certain themes throughout their literature and Cornelius Eady is not an exception. Cornelius Eady’s collection of poems in Brutal Imagination focus on issues such as racism, family crisis, internal conflict, and death. The first part of the collection circles around a servant who works for Susan Smith and is the caretaker for her children. The story centers around the perspective of the servant who is also the overarching narrator. The story describes old version of United States when racism was still bluntly present and affected individuals identities and financial opportunities. Based off the information presented in the collection, the servant can possibly be male. The general plot follows deeply into the difficult life of the male servant through examining the issues he faces. The first poem within the collection set-ups the rest of the story with context for the readers giving them a few expectations about what they should look forward to reading further. Eady draws the reader through integrating an origin for the male servant and his connection to Susan Smith’s family.

The Harlem Renaissance was a period that started in the early 1920’s in which the concept of “the Negro” was intended to be changed (History.com). This period witnessed the thrive of African American art. White stereotypes had influenced not only the way African Americans were perceived in society but also their relationship between themselves and others. Participants like Gwendolyn Bennett, Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and W.E.B. Du Bois were some of many authors of creative pieces that reflected their points of views. Like George Hutchinson writes in his article, The Harlem Renaissance brought many African Americans from South to North which helped the rise of literacy and the creation of organizations dedicated to promoting African American civil rights that resulted in the uplift of the race and the availability of socioeconomic opportunities (1). The distinctive expression through things like poetry and music during the Harlem Renaissance reflected the reality and experiences black people were going through. This essay is going to focus on the relationship between poetry, politics and representation while relying on the poem “We Wear the Mark” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. At the same time, this paper will be supported with works from Langston Hughes, Alain Locke and W.E.B. Dubois.

There are many ways people can express their race and ethnicity. For example; art, music, dancing and even acting. These are all ways to show your racial pride, and the best place to do it was at the Harlem Renaissance. However, is it high art or folk art that best expresses racial pride?

The poem “Incident,” by Countee Cullen, was written in the 1920s where racism towards African Americans was extremely prevalent. Jim Crow Laws were heavily enacted in the South, and the mandate of “separate but equal,” was spread across the U.S. This segregated schools, public places, and public transportation, where African American facilities were almost always inferior. Though northern America was thought to be much more progressive, there was still an incredible inequality between blacks and whites. Alvin Ailey said that “one of the worst things about racism is what it does to young people,” and this idea is depicted through the speakers’ childhood memory where he recounts being called “N****r” by another child. The poem presents the power that words have, and how divisive they can be. Through the imagery, diction, syntax, and tone in “Incident,” Cullen powerfully depicts racism and the lasting impact that words have. Furthermore, this poem presents how racism has no boundaries and affects everyone even an innocent child.

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

O’Hara ‘reads the painting as text, rather than a static object’ reading the ‘larger painterly aesthetic generated’ by Rivers’ painting. However, O’Hara’s reading is neither simple nor direct, rather it is the result of a series of abstractions. O’Hara writes ‘on seeing’ Rivers’ painting which is ‘a version of’ Leutze’s painting, which itself is ‘based on’ a possibly fictional event in American history. These series of perspectives serve as aesthetic, historical and rhetorical frames that abstract and re-imagine the heroic figure of Washington. To best evoke this series of perspectives, O’Hara utilizes ‘Rivers’ strategies of layering, blurring and collaging totally into a verbal realm so that he may speak directly to the “subject” of the canvas’. His use of ‘our’, not only blurs the figuration of the lyric ‘I’, but it adds a layer of abstraction, the patriotic ‘our’ that is laced with sense of ownership. This ownership is not simply an ownership of the voice, but also an ownership of homosexuality alluded to through the reference of white pants, in the opening lines ‘Now that our hero has come back to us / in his white pants’ (1,2). Not only does the use of image of white pants reference Rivers’ painting, but also Leutze’s and in turn the traditional representation of Washington. O’Hara, however, uses his own historical frame to re-imagine the aesthetic meaning of

Also, the discovery of Richard Wright’s haikus was nothing short of a treasure of the saturation of Black life in a small form. As poets we all know (or should) that the study of our craft is like breathing, it keeps us alive. No matter the level of writing we feel that we may have achieved, we still must

Many people in today’s society tend to only listen to the beat of the song rather than the meaning, and vise versa. They either like the lyrics or like the beat and do not fully understand the meaning. For example, Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” is a very catchy song with a good chorus but the meaning is misconstrued. The meaning and the musicality is not intertwined. It is a song about a a disturbed kid going on a killing spree. Unlike Foster the People, people adore Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a nineteenth century poet, not because he had a good rhythm, but because he intertwines musicality and imagery. He merges sight and sound to establish a cinematic orchestra and paints a vivid image full of depth and personality. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow incorporates religion through the influence of nature and the strong presence of musicality in “The Cross of Snow”, “My Lost Youth”, “Autumn” and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls”.

The theme of double consciousness pervades the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. Reasons for expressing double-consciousness stem from historical, cultural, and psychological realities facing African-Americans realities that continue to define the sociocultural landscape in the United States. In Countee Cullen's poem "Heritage," the opening line is "What is Africa to me?" The narrator ponders what it means to be of African heritage, especially given the astounding number of generations separating ancestral ties from life in twentieth century America. Moreover, slavery tore apart families and communities, rendering African identity into a fragmented entity and African-American identity even more inchoate. The Harlem Renaissance represented a revolutionary shift in the way that the sons, grandsons, daughters, and granddaughters of slaves begun to conceptualize the African-American culture. African-American identity is naturally one of double- or even multiple-consciousness, and this consciousness is conveyed throughout the literature of the Harlem Renaissance.

The modern period of literature was a conglomerate of emotion and feeling from many different aspects of everyday life. The art, many of which came from the Harlem Renaissance, embodied the struggle to make ends meet in the newly industrialized cities. Literature broke the floodgates on exposing some of the greatest scandals and power struggles ever faced in this nation. Poetry was the unheard voice championing the early civil rights movement, long before Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X were even in elementary school. With these great accomplishments came some of the longest lasting impressions on today’s literature and culture.

Over time, it has become relatively easy, almost second nature, for people to devise strict societal barriers and categorize people, cultures, and ideas into separate boxes. In Jean Toomer’s “Portrait in Georgia”, however, this is exceptionally challenging for the reader to do so. With his poetic paintbrush, Toomer describes a beautiful woman, but he intentionally blurs the racial lines of black and white in order to illustrate an underlying theme concerning the deep-rooted problems of racism in America. To help convey this theme, Toomer utilizes the literary tool of imagery, and he does so masterfully. Each image is meticulously placed and organized to provide the most powerful impact possible. While certain images emphasize the beauty and grandeur of a woman, others bring up unbelievably violent, gory, and horrific images of death associated with the treatment of African Americans during the time of Jim Crow Laws. Overall, Toomer’s use of imagery brings “Portrait in Georgia” to life, grabs the reader’s attention, successfully demonstrates an extremely powerful message, and causes society’s darker parts to be questioned.

This semester my art practice has primarily focused on utilising carefully constructed language as opposed to previous stream-of-consciousness techniques, while further investigating participatory projects, and assemblage as a new form of installation. The importance of memory and the handwritten repeatedly warranted further consideration during the course of the semester and became a fundamental element in each work. Conceptually, my practice has evolved into a critique of diaristic language by exhibiting private confessions in public spaces and inviting strangers to participate in the perverse act of reading my most personal thoughts. This notion is challenged by the introduction of secondary texts and blurs the line between what is real and what is fiction within the work. These evolving elements within my practice are best observed through works warm under orange (standstill), the pitiful militia, my mother and raymond carver, and the library respectively.