Countee Cullen: The Poetic’s Struggle within Race and Sexuality

Countee Cullen's poetry illustrates a man who is torn between being born in the African American world, his career as a raceless poetic and dealing with his sexuality during the Harlem Renaissance period. Five of the seven volumes of poetry that bears Cullen's name have, in their titles, a basis for racial themes that comes out in the poetry itself.

Five of the seven volumes of poetry that bears Cullen's name have, in their titles, a basis for racial themes that comes out in the poetry itself. For example the poems; “In Color”, “Tableau,” “The Shroud of Color,” “Fruit of the Flower,” “For a Poet,” and “Spring Reminiscence” is classified as gay poems. The presenter speaks of cruelty of those who are indifferent. Cullen’s next volume of poems, “Cooper Sun, has several of thinly implied gay poems, including "Colors," "More Than a Fool's Song” and Uncle Jim."

Cullen tried to write an ambitious poem on the subject of lynching. The poem was called “The Black Christ,” The 900-line poem exemplifies Cullen's shining poetic layering of racial and gay themes. Jim the main character is v...