Countee Cullen
From Harlem Renaissance
Countee Cullen was a poet in the Harlem Renaissance.
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Childhood
He was born on May 30, 1903. He was probably born in Louisville, Kentucky. He was born Countee Leroy Porter. He was abandoned by his mother and his father is unknown. He was raised by his grandmother Elizabeth Porter. They moved to where she died in 1918. Countee was then unofficially adopted by Reverend Fredrick Cullen at the age of 15 who had no other children of his own. Frederick Cullen was the reverend of the biggest church in all of New York. He had a traumatic first years but it was steady after that. His mother did not contact him until he became relativley famous in 1922.
Education
He attended Dewit Clinton High School which had been an all white school for many years and was still predominantly white. He became Vice President. He was an A student. He recieved an honor award for Latin Studies. He later went to New York University for college were he excelled as a student and poet. He then went to Harvard to get his masters degree. He published his first book of poems. He was also taught by his father about the bible. He never went to a writing school but got his masters degree in writing and poetry. He graduated in 1925 as a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. While an undergraduate he published some of his work in various magazines. He was the assistant editor for the Opportunity magazine. His column in the magazine "Dark Tower" increased his writing credibility.
Career
He was never short for money and was well paid. He was a poet, playwright, and teacher. His first book of poems, Color was published in 1925. He was also a mentor. one of the many kids he mentored was James Baldwin. He was almost always worked in New York because he could write poems from anywhere. He made about eight cents a word for his poems. He worked at the Crisis Headquarters at times. His work there was edited by W.E.B. Du Bois. Later on he published many books. He was one of the leading figures in the Harlem Renaissance along with, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Marcus Garvey and Alain Locke. He was as a poet conservative and did not ignore racial themes. He based some of his work off other poets themes, such as Keats.
Love Life
He married Nina Yolande Du Bois the daughter of W.E.B. Du Bois in 1928. The marriage fell apart after two months because Countee went to Europe with his best man without Nina. The best man's name is unknown. They technically stayed married for several years because Countee couldn't sign the papers. Countee was also rumored to have sexual relations with other men though he never admitted to this. Except to his first with. He was rumored on multiple occasions to be homosexual. He then moved to France as a Guggenheim Fellow. Guggenheim He remarried to Ida Mae Roberson in 1940.
Death
He Died in January 9, 1946 of uremic poisoning and high blood pressure. Uremia
Published Works
Color (1925)
Copper Sun (1927)
The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1928)
The Black Christ and Other Poems (1929)
One Way to Heaven (1932)
The Medea,and Some Poems (1925)
The Lost Zoo (1940)
My Lives and how I Lost Them (1942)
St. Louis Woman (1946)
The Third Fourth of July (1946)
Poems
Fruit of the Flower
My father is a quiet man With sober, steady ways; For simile, a folded fan; His nights are like his days.
My mother's life is puritan,
No hint of cavalier,
A pool so calm you're sure it can
Have little depth to fear.
And yet my father's eyes can boast
How full his life has been;
There haunts them yet the languid ghost
Of some still sacred sin.
And though my mother chants of God,
And of the mystic river,
I've seen a bit of checkered sod
Set all her flesh aquiver.
Why should he deem it pure mischance
A son of his is fain
To do a naked tribal dance
Each time he hears the rain?
Why should she think it devil's art
That all my songs should be
Of love and lovers, broken heart,
And wild sweet agony?
Who plants a seed begets a bud,
Extract of that same root;
Why marvel at the hectic blood
That flushes this wild fruit?
Saturday's Child
Some are teethed on a silver spoon, With the stars strung for a rattle; I cut my teeth as the black racoon-- For implements of battle.
Some are swaddled in silk and down,
And heralded by a star;
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
On a night that was black as tar.
For some, godfather and goddame
The opulent fairies be;
Dame Poverty gave me my name,
And Pain godfathered me.
For I was born on Saturday--
"Bad time for planting a seed,"
Was all my father had to say,
And, "One mouth more to feed."
Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.
Bibliography
Books
Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance
Artists and Writers of the Harlem Renaissance
Hill, Laban. Harlem Stomp. New York: Time Warner Book Group, 2003
Wintz, Cary. Harlem Speaks. NaperVille: Sourcebooks, 2007
WebSites http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ccullen.htm
http://www.duboislc.org/ShadesOfBlack/CounteeCullen.html
Articles
Grant, William. "Discovering Authors, Countee Cullen". Detroit Gale 2003
