Color

Countee Cullen

Description

Color (1925) is a collection of poems by Countee Cullen. 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. 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.

“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. His question bears a dual sense of genuine wonder and cynical doubt, and ultimately produces no easy answer. 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. / […] / 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. Cullen’s relationship to place, whether Africa, America, or Baltimore, is inextricably linked to his experience of racial violence. With this knowledge, he navigates the spaces between these places, inhabiting a language and a poetic tradition thrust upon him at birth. 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.

Sujets

• Harlem Renaissance
• African American culture
• African American
• Poetry
• American
• Renaissance de Harlem
• Black

Informations

• Publié par: Mint Editions
• Date de parution: 24 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513287409
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Color
Countee Cullen
 
 
Color was first published in 1925.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.
ISBN 9781513282381 | E-ISBN 9781513287409
Published by Mint Editions®
minteditionbooks .com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Project Manager: Micaela Clark
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services
 
C ONTENTS T O Y OU W HO R EAD M Y B OOK C OLOR Y ET D O I M ARVEL A S ONG OF P RAISE B ROWN B OY TO B ROWN G IRL A B ROWN G IRL D EAD T O A B ROWN G IRL T O A B ROWN B OY B LACK M AGDALENS A TLANTIC C ITY W AITER N EAR W HITE T ABLEAU H ARLEM W INE S IMON THE C YRENIAN S PEAKS I NCIDENT T WO W HO C ROSSED A L INE ( S HE C ROSSES) T WO W HO C ROSSED A L INE ( H E C ROSSES) S ATURDAY’S C HILD T HE D ANCE OF L OVE P AGAN P RAYER W ISDOM C OMETH W ITH THE Y EARS T O M Y F AIRER B RETHREN F RUIT OF THE F LOWER T HE S HROUD OF C OLOR H ERITAGE E PITAPHS F OR A P OET F OR M Y G RANDMOTHER F OR A C YNIC F OR A S INGER F OR A V IRGIN F OR A L ADY I K NOW F OR A L OVELY L ADY F OR AN A THEIST F OR AN E VOLUTIONIST AND H IS O PPONENT F OR AN A NARCHIST F OR A M AGICIAN F OR A P ESSIMIST F OR A M OUTHY W OMAN F OR A P HILOSOPHER F OR AN U NSUCCESSFUL S INNER F OR A F OOL F OR O NE W HO G AYLY S OWED H IS O ATS F OR A S KEPTIC F OR A F ATALIST F OR D AUGHTERS OF M AGDALEN F OR A W ANTON F OR A P REACHER F OR O NE W HO D IED S INGING OF D EATH F OR J OHN K EATS, A POSTLE OF B EAUTY F OR H AZEL H ALL, A MERICAN P OET F OR P AUL L AWRENCE D UNBAR F OR J OSEPH C ONRAD F OR M YSELF A LL THE D EAD F OR L OVE’S S AKE O H, F OR A L ITTLE W HILE B E K IND I F Y OU S HOULD G O T O O NE W HO S AID M E N AY A DVICE TO Y OUTH C APRICE S ACRAMENT B READ AND W INE S PRING R EMINISCENCE V ARIA S UICIDE C HANT S HE OF THE D ANCING F EET S INGS J UDAS I SCARIOT T HE W ISE M ARY, M OTHER OF C HRIST D IALOGUE I N M EMORY OF C OL. C HARLES Y OUNG T O M Y F RIENDS G ODS T O J OHN K EATS, P OET. A T S PRING T IME O N G OING H ARSH W ORLD T HAT L ASHEST M E R EQUIESCAM
 
T O Y OU W HO R EAD M Y B OOK
Soon every sprinter,
However feet,
Comes to a winter
Of sure defeat:
Though he may race
Like the hunted doe,
Time has a pace
To lay him low.
Soon we who sing,
However high,
Must face the Thing
We cannot fly.
Yea, though we fling
Our notes to the sun,
Time will outsing
Us every one.
All things must change
As the wind is blown;
Time will estrange
The flesh from the bone.
The dream shall elude
The dreamer’s clasp,
And only its hood
Shall comfort his grasp.
A little while,
Too brief at most,
And even my smile
Will be a ghost.
A little space,
A Finger’s crook,
And who shall trace
The path I took?
Who shall declare
My whereabouts;
Say if in the air
My being shouts
Along light ways,
Or if in the sea,
Or deep earth stays
The germ of me?
Ah, none knows, none,
Save (but too well)
The Cryptic One
Who will not tell.
This is my hour
To wax and climb,
Flaunt a red flower
In the face of time.
And only an hour
Time gives, then snap
Goes the flower,
And dried is the sap.
Juice of the first
Grapes of my vine,
I proffer your thirst
My own heart’s wine.
Here of my growing
A red rose sways,
Seed of my sowing,
And work of my days.
(I run, but time’s
Abreast with me;
I sing, but he climbs
With my highest C.)
Drink while my blood
Colors the wine,
Reach while the bud
Is still on the vine…
Then.…
When the hawks of death
Tear at my throat
Till song and breath
Ebb note by note,
Turn to this book
Of the mellow word
For a singing look
At the stricken bird.
Say, “This is the way
He chirped and sung,
In the sweet heyday
When his heart was young.
Though his throat is bare,
By death defiled,
Song labored there
And bore a child.”
When the dreadful Ax
Rives me apart
When the sharp wedge cracks
My arid heart,
Turn to this book
Of the singing me
For a springtime look
At the wintry tree.
Say, “Thus it was weighed
With flower and fruit,
Ere the Ax was laid
Unto its root.
Though the blows fall free
On a gnarled trunk now,
Once he was a tree
With a blossomy bough.”
 
 
COLOR
 
Y ET D O I M ARVEL
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 some day 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!
 
A S ONG OF P RAISE
(For one who praised his lady’s being fair.)
Y ou have not heard my love’s dark throat,
Slow-fluting like a reed,
Release the perfect golden note
She caged there for my need.
Her walk is like the replica
Of some barbaric dance
Wherein the soul of Africa
Is winged with arrogance.
And yet so light she steps across
The ways her sure feet pass,
She does not dent the smoothest moss
Or bend the thinnest grass.
My love is dark as yours is fair,
Yet lovelier I hold her
Than listless maids with pallid hair,
And blood that’s thin and colder.
You-proud-and-to-be-pitied one,
Gaze on her and despair;
Then seal your lips until the sun
Discovers one as fair.