Countee Cullen
| Countee Cullen | |
|---|---|
Countee Cullen, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1941
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| Born | May 30, 1903 |
| Died | January 9, 1946 (aged 42) |
| Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | New York University; Harvard University |
| Period | 1923-46 |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Literary movement | Harlem Renaissance |
| Spouse | Yolande Williams |
Countee Cullen (May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946), born as Coleman Rutherford, was an African American poet, author and scholar who was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He pronounced his name "Coun-tay", not "Coun-tee".
Countee Cullen was possibly born on May 30, although due to conflicting accounts of his early life, a general application of the year of his birth as 1903 is reasonable. He was either born in New York City,Baltimore, or Lexington, Kentucky, with his widow being convinced he was born in Lexington. Cullen was abandoned by his mother, and reared by a woman named Mrs. Porter, who was probably his paternal grandmother. Porter brought young Countee to Harlem when he was nine. She died in 1918. No known reliable information exists of his childhood until 1918 when he was taken in, or adopted, by Reverend and Mrs. Frederick A. Cullen of Harlem, New York City. The Reverend was the local minister, and founder, of the Salem Methodist Episcopal Church.
At some point, Cullen entered the DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx. He excelled academically at the school while emphasizing his skills at poetry and won a city-wide poetry contest At DeWitt, he was elected into the honor society, editor of the weekly newspaper, and elected vice-president of his graduating class. In January 1922, he graduated with honors in Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and French.
"Yet Do I Marvel"
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must someday die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
After graduating high school, he entered New York University (NYU). In 1923, he won second prize in the Witter Bynner undergraduate poetry contest, which was sponsored by the Poetry Society of America, with a poem entitled The Ballad of the Brown Girl. At about this time, some of his poetry was promulgated in the national periodicals Harper's, Crisis, Opportunity, The Bookman, and Poetry. The ensuing year he again placed second in the contest, but in 1925 he finally won. Cullen competed in a poetry contest sponsored by Opportunity and came in second with To One Who Say Me Nay, while losing to Langston Hughes's The Weary Blues. Sometime thereafter, Cullen graduated from NYU as one of eleven students selected to Phi Beta Kappa.
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