“They tend to hurl this poet into the gaping pit that lies before all…” — Countee Cullen | V2Melody

“They tend to hurl this poet into the gaping pit that lies before all Negro writers, in the confines of which they become racial artists instead of artists pure and simple.”

Warns that a solely racial pose can trap a writer short of the universal · Review of Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues, The Dark Tower, 1926

About Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen

30 May 1903–9 January 1946

On May 30, 1903, a child was born who would become one of the most celebrated voices of the Harlem Renaissance, yet whose origins remain shrouded in the kind of mystery that seems almost poetic in retrospect. Countee Cullen's exact birthplace has been disputed—some records suggest New York City, others Louisville…

More by Countee Cullen

Poems by Countee Cullen

More remarks by Countee Cullen

“That is what has hindered the development of artists among us. Their one note has been the concern with their race. That is all very well, none of us can get away from it. I cannot at times.”

Admits race as inescapable feeling while resisting it as an artist's only subject · Interview, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 February 1924

“Negro poetry, it seems to me, in the sense that we speak of Russian, French, or Chinese poetry, must emanate from some country other than this in some language other than our own.”

Argues that American English, not a separate racial tongue, is the medium of Black American verse · Foreword, Caroling Dusk, 1927

“But I suppose some of us erotic lads, vide myself, were placed here just to eat our hearts out with longing for unattainable things, especially for that friendship beyond understanding.”

A private admission of hunger for a love he could not safely name in public · Letter to Alain Locke, 3 March 1923