Color (1925) is a collection of poems by Countee Cullen .
For Cullen, poetry is as much a means of survival and self-invention as it is a form of art--without it, where would he be? With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Countee Cullen \'s Color is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers..
With this knowledge, he navigates the spaces between these places, inhabiting a language and a poetic tradition thrust upon him at birth.
Cullen\'s relationship to place, whether Africa, America, or Baltimore, is inextricably linked to his experience of racial violence. / [...] / And so I smiled, but he poked out / His tongue, and called me, \'Nigger.\' / [...] Of all the things that happened there / That\'s all I can remember." In these lines, a single memory serves to define an entire city; an entire childhood, even, is defined by the violent response of a white man consumed with hatred.
For Cullen could have just as easily asked "What is America to me?", to which his poem "Incident" might respond: "I saw a Baltimorean / Keep looking straight at me.
His question bears a dual sense of genuine wonder and cynical doubt, and ultimately produces no easy answer. "Over three centuries removed / From the scenes his fathers loved, / Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, / What is Africa to me?" In "Heritage," Cullen investigates his relationship with the past as a black man raised in a nation his people were forced to build.
Deeply personal and attuned to poetic tradition, Cullen\'s verses capture the spirit of creative inquiry that defined a generation of writers, musicians, painters, and intellectuals while changing the course of American history itself.
Published the same year Cullen entered Harvard to pursue a masters in English, Color was a brilliant debut by a poet who had already gained a reputation as a leading young artist of the Harlem Renaissance.
Color (1925) is a collection of poems by Countee Cullen
