Gradesaver has published a number of guides on the individual poems of Countee Cullen including "Yet Do I Marvel," "From the Dark Tower," "Tableau," and "Saturday's Child."
Over the course of his career, Cullen's style stayed fairly consistent while his choice of subject matter shifted between collections. His poetry often features intricate rhyme and meter, clearly bearing the influence of Romantic poets like William Wordsworth. At the same time, his work closely examines the struggles and triumphs in the lives of Black characters, showing them contending with the challenges of the present and trying to make sense of their inherited past. These themes are very much at the forefront of Cullen's first collection, Color. Two of his most famous poems from the collection, "Incident" and "Heritage," directly engage with questions of ancestry and hate. "Incident" describes a horrible encounter the speaker had as a child visiting Baltimore. What at first appears to be a happy memory is quickly shattered by a terrible instance of racism when he looks at another young boy: "Now I was eight and very small, / And he was no whit bigger, / And so I smiled, but he poked out / His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.” / I saw the whole of Baltimore / From May until December; / Of all the things that happened there / That’s all that I remember." The poem's ballad meter initially conceals the sharp turn in mood. The final line reveals the poem's central point: the young white boy's cruel use of a racial slur erased all of the speaker's other recollections of the city. In "Heritage," the speaker of the poem attempts to understand his connection to his African roots. He states this clearly in a repeated sequence of lines: "One three centuries removed / From the scenes his fathers loved, / Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, / What is Africa to me?" The phrase "what is Africa to me?" amplifies his central struggle; he feels alienated from his inherited past. The images of the "spicy grove" and "cinnamon tree" show the speaker's clear vision of where his ancestors were from. Yet, by noting that he is "three centuries removed," he is reminding himself that his link to the past has been damaged by slavery and colonization. Cullen's discussion of these themes was largely informed by conversations among writers in the Harlem Renaissance about how to write about Africa and the extent to which their art should be influenced by that history. Both poems highlight the collection's concentrate on memory and legacy, as they show individuals struggling with the past. Color was, and still is, considered groundbreaking for the way it tackled these racial issues with nuance and carefully constructed meter and rhyme.
Cullen's second collection, Copper Sun, was published in 1927. The majority of the poems in the book are about love, with a particular focus on interracial relationships and natural imagery. In the poem "From the Dark Tower," the speaker states that there will be a time when Black individuals do not have the products of their work stolen. They then goes on to describe the importance of darkness, implying the value of Black labor: "The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, / White stars is no less lovely being dark, / And there are buds that cannot bloom at all / In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; / So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, / And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds." The first four lines depict darkness as beautiful, as the speaker says the dark parts of the sky are just as "lovely" as the stars, and that some flowers can only grow in the shade. In the last two lines, when they say they will foster their "agonizing seeds" in this darkness, they are expressing a small hope for a better future. The seeds represent the possibility of a future in which they can enjoy the literal fruits of their labor. By referencing their bleeding hearts alongside this act of care, the speaker shows that they believe love will be the main driver of change, even if the process itself is a painful one. Love is central to this poem in the same way it is to almost all of the collection; it is shown as a force that heals and grows, nourishing the seeds of a kinder world.
As suggested by its title, Cullen's third collection, The Black Christ (1929) is primarily about Black Americans navigating a complicated relationship with Christianity. The poems depict their struggle to keep their faith in the face of tragedy and injustice. Elsewhere, it also examines the hate crimes and racially motivated violence of the period. The title poem, "The Black Christ," addresses the question of faith directly in its opening lines: "God's glory and my country's shame, / And how one man who cursed Christ's name / May never fully expiate / That crime till at the Blessed Gate." The speaker feels guilt for cursing God, but at the same time cannot let go of the "shame" embedded in the history of his country. Enduring racism has led him to points of despair and doubt. Internally, he is torn between keeping his faith and understanding how God could allow this history of suffering and brutality. He is unable to reconcile his belief in God with the political realities that surround him. This major conflict presents questions that the collection never answers, but continually interrogates. For Cullen, the question of faith has no simple answers.
Cullen's final collection, The Medea and Some Other Poems, is the most widely varied of his books. Published in 1935, the poems cover a wide array of subjects, ranging from Greek mythology to flashpoint political issues of the time. In this book, Cullen writes less about race and prejudice, but there is still a great deal of overlap with his previous collections. The poem "Scottsboro, Too, Is Worth Its Song" deals with intersection of art and politics, as the speaker urges his fellow poets to speak truth to power: "I said / Now will the poets sing,- / Their cries go thundering / Like blood and tears Into the nation’s ears, / Like lightning dart Into the nation’s heart. / Against disease and death and all things fell, / And war, / Their strophes rise and swell / To jar / The foe smug in his citadel." The speaker is calling upon them to use their words to challenge authority and traditional power structures. While the language is more general here than it is in other poems, the term "foe" is not defined specifically, it carries echoes of Cullen's previous work. He has faith that the act of writing can push against death, disease, and war. As in his other work, Cullen is acknowledging the weight of the past but pushing for a way forward. This hope for the future, however small, is one of the constants across all of his poetry.
Cullen is commonly viewed as the representative voice of the Harlem Renaissance. He simultaneously sought to be recognized for the artistic merit of his work, while never shying away from the most urgent social problems facing Black Americans of his generation. He used his elegant and decorous style to detail and elevate Black lives, showing their struggle to contend with the past and improve the present. In doing so, Cullen brought beauty to the pressing political and intellectual dilemmas of the movement.
