Countee Cullen Analysis

Throughout the poem Incident by Countee Cullen, the author uses the change of tone to reflect the ideas and purpose of the Harlem Renaissance. Throughout the poem, the tone changes from the young child being thrilled about arriving to a heartbreaking memory. In the poem, cullen writes “Once riding in old Baltimore? Heart-filled, head filled with glee/ I saw a Baltimorean/ Keep looking straight at me/ Now I was eight and very small,/ And he was no whit bigger,” (lines 1-6). In this part of the poem, the child had just recently arrived in Baltimore and is more than excited to be in a different place other than in the plantations. He’s very optimistic about meeting someone whom he thought would be his friend. The tone explains how during the Harlem

Cullen wrote more conventionally which is important to the future generations who may comes across The New Negro. His topics focused on the black experience and his poetry was more traditional and soulful which he strongly believed to be the best way of writing. This what made him different from Hughes, Hurston, Toomer and others, who initially focused more on the folk tradition as their signature style. Furthermore, Cullen differed from his peers by defying the ideology of remaining within his race poetically. It was not in fact denying his "blackness" or African American Heritage but bringing to recognition his right to create ideas and works that does not necessarily have to deal with race. He acknowledged that he was Black, just like the

Upon first glance the differences between Hughes and Cullen seem very clear. Hughes writes in rhythm, while Cullens writes in rhyme, but those are just the stylistic differences. Hughes and Cullen may write poems in a different style but they both write about similar themes. The time they wrote in was during the Harlem Renaissance, a time period when African Americans were discovering their heritage and trying to become accepted in the once white dominated society. The African Americans had their own cultures and their own style of music and writing but they wanted everyone to know they were still human, that they were still American, even though the differences in color were

Countee Cullen is one of the most well-known poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Born as Countee LeRoy Porter, Cullen was raised by his maternal grandmother for the first few years of his life. He later was adopted by the Cullen family to become Countee Cullen. With his adoptive family, Cullen lived in Harlem, New York, which later became the headquarters of the Harlem Renaissance. Being raised in the center of this all-black society influenced Cullen’s style of writing. The man’s writing style is distinctly demonstrated in his poem, “Fruit of the Flower”. In “Fruit of the Flower”, Cullen conveys the message that African-Americans should be treated as equal to white Americans. The song, “Team”, written and vocalized by Lorde, a modern pop

Langston Hughes is one the most renowned and respected authors of twentieth century America not simply one of the most respected African-American authors, though he is certainly this as well, but one of the most respected authors of the period overall. A large part of the respect and admiration that the man and his work have garnered is due to the richness an complexity of Hughes' writing, both his poetry and his prose and even his non-fictions. In almost all of his texts, Hughes manages at once to develop and explore the many intricacies and interactions of the human condition and specifically of the experience growing up and living as a black individual in a white-dominated and explicitly anti-Black society while at the same time, while at the same time rendering his human characters and their emotions in a simple, straightforward, and immensely accessible fashion. Reading the complexity behind the surface simplicity of his works is at once enjoyable and edifying.

In the “Incident” by Countee Cullen, the theme of this poem is about an eight year old who experiences a moment of racism. Which in this case is called the “Incident”; this all happens when the child visits old Baltimore. At first she is seen excited and full of glee, due to the new environment. The child then begins to lose those current feelings, when the eight year old come across the man of Baltimore. Who keeps gazing at the young child, until the kid breaks the silence by making a simple smile.

The Harlem Renaissance was an evolutionary period in terms of African-American cultural expression; in fact, the movement changed the way that black musicians, poets, authors, and even ordinary people perceived themselves. One of the most influential poets of the time was Langston Hughes. Hughes’ works display a pride in being black that most African-Americans are too afraid to show, even today. Moreover, he adamantly refused to submit to the sentiment that he should be ashamed of his heritage, instead believing that “no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself.”(p1990 From the Negro Artist). In the article “‘Don’t Turn Back’: Langston Hughes, Barack Obama, and Martin Luther King, Jr.” by Jason Miller, Miller analyzes how Hughes’ poetry has been used by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama and how the House of Un-american Activities Committee affected that use.

Cullen is hopeful to get to a place where people of different races will be able to look at others without prejudice and discrimination. However, the poem “Incident” is of a less positive tone. She expresses her experience in a shocked manner, saying, a boy stuck his “tongue out and, called, [her] ‘Nigger’,” (Cullen 8). She was so shocked that “From May until December; .../… of all the things that happened... /… that’s all [she could remember” in Baltimore (Cullen 10-12). At the young age that she was at, it is surprising and upsetting to her to be discriminated against for no reason.

On his trip a white boy calls him the n-word and the boy becomes emotionally crushed. You can see this through the imagery that Cullen used when he wrote:

After graduating, Cullen entered New York University, where his works attracted critical attention. Cullen's first collection of poems, Color was published in the same year he graduated from NYU. Written in a traditional style, the work celebrated black beauty and deplored the effects of racism. (Brown, 2012)

The well known poet Langston Hughes was an inspiring character during the Harlem Renaissance to provide a push for the black communities to fight for the rights they deserved. Hughes wrote his poetry to deliver important messages and provide support to the movements. When he was at a young age a teacher introduced him to poets Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman, and they inspired him to start his own. Being a “darker brother,” as he called blacks, he experienced and wanted his rights, and that inspired him. Although literary critics felt that Langston Hughes portrayed an unattractive view of black life, the poems demonstrate reality. Hughes used the Blues and Jazz to add effect to his work as well as his extravagant word use and literary

Countee Cullen and his poem “Yet Do I Marvel” talks about the relationship between God and man but the main point of the poem is his position in the world as a being black and being a black poet. His skin color is placed

Poetry became a primary medium by which African-Americans could explore the "new Negro" identity that flourished during the Harlem Renaissance (Academy of American Poets). Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and Gwendolyn Bennett are among the literary greats of the Harlem Renaissance. Although each poet cultivated a unique style, there

     A few of the notable writers and poets were Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, and Zora Neale Hurston. Langston Hughes was the most popular and gifted of all poets during this movement. Many of his poems described the different everyday lives of working class African Americans by adapting the rhythms of their music to his poetry. Some of the poems moved to the tempo of jazz and the blues. Another major figure was poet Claude McKay, a Jamaican immigrant whose militant verses urged African Americans to resist prejudice and discrimination. His poems also expressed the pain of life in the black ghettos of the 1920's, and the strain of being black in a world dominated by whites.

He never experienced a perfect world, he has always had to struggle with being colored. This struggle was originally inquisitive but now it is restless, starting to become angry. Cullen points out that God is good, although at the end of the poem he questions why he was created black. During this time period, being black was one of the biggest struggles that a person could encounter. Not only that, but a black poet was unheard of, so Cullen’s destiny seemed very hazy. He is marveling at the fact that God chose to create him this way, however, he has a hard time accepting it, just like Milton. Cullen highlights this marvel by using lists to describe the three qualities of God that affirm God’s goodness. The strong mood of religious reflection in this poem comes from the African-American community where religion and being close to God is vital. A second important theme for Cullen is his race, which is shown as the focal point and the obstacle that he faces. On the one hand, the poet's black skin is included in the same category as the “blindness of the mole” (Cullen, line 3) or the punishments of “Tantalus and Sisyphus” (Cullen, line 5 & 7). This is another example that examines God, and possibly why He made humans different races. On the other hand, the poet takes pride from his race when he acknowledges that God’s sovereign right to do as He pleases will