ext_12993 ([identity profile] emma-in-oz.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] 50books_poc2011-02-04 07:34 pm

2.7 Countee Cullen, Color (1925)

Countee Cullen, Color (1925)

Cullen was a leading light of the Harlem Renaissance (and, cough, the only author from that period I have read).* I enjoyed his work - he is clearly a fairly traditional writer. His poetry rhymes, follows classical traditions and references classical and Biblical mythology. He was writing three years after *The Wasteland* came out, but might as well have been writing in the nineteenth century.

Cullen himself said: ‘I should be the last person to vote for any infringement of the author’s right to tell a story, to delineate a character, or to transcribe an emotion in his own way, and in the light of truth as he sees it... I do believe, however, that the Negro has not yet built up a large enough body of sound, healthy literature to permit him to speculate in abortions and aberrations which other people are too prone to accept as legitimate...’

* Not my Renaissance! The Renaissance for Aboriginal literature was probably... um, is probably now.

[identity profile] browngirl.livejournal.com 2011-02-04 01:15 pm (UTC)(link)
He was one of my favorite poets in my teens; I've always loved rhyme and form and formality, and he allied those to issues of race, class and color I knew from my everyday life.

Wasn't his name

[identity profile] dakiwiboid.livejournal.com 2011-02-04 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
actually "Cullen", though, not "Callum"?