Photo: Carl Van Vecten

Countée Porter Cullen (1903-1946) was a significant personality during the Harlem Renaissance.  In 1925 Cullen published his first book of poetry "Color".   Two years later he published his second book, "Copper Sun". 

Cullen was also a mentor to James Baldwin.  Cullen met Baldwin while teaching at Frederick Douglass Junior High School in New York.

Cullen's was married for about two years to W. E. B. Dubois' daughter Nina.  The wedding was considered one of the most significant social events during the Harlem Renaissance (also known as the "New Negro Movement").

Countee Cullen reads his poem "Heritage"

 

My Soul's High Song
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by Countée Cullen, edited and with an intro by Gerald Early

Paperback: 618 pages
Publisher: Anchor; 1 edition (December 1, 1990)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385412959
ISBN-13: 978-0385412957
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds

For the first time in more than two decades, the very best of Countee Cullen's poetry and prose is available in one collection.

"My Soul's High Song is a generous introduction to new readers of Countee Cullen and a more than generous offering to those of us who hold the poet dear."—Maya Angelou

 

And Bid Him Sing: A Biography of Countée Cullen
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by Charles Molesworth

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (October 1, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226533646
ISBN-13: 978-0226533643
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1 inches

While competing with Langston Hughes for the title of “Poet Laureate of Harlem,” Countée Cullen (1903-46) crafted poems that became touchstones for American readers, both black and white. Inspired by classic themes and working within traditional forms, Cullen shaped his poetry to address universal questions like love, death, longing, and loss while also dealing with the issues of race and idealism that permeated the national conversation. Drawing on the poet’s unpublished correspondence with contemporaries and friends like Hughes, Claude McKay, Carl Van Vechten, Dorothy West, Charles S. Johnson and Alain Locke, and presenting a unique interpretation of his poetic gifts, And Bid Him Sing is the first full-length critical biography of this famous American writer.

Despite his untimely death at the age of forty-two, Cullen left behind an extensive body of work. In addition to five books of poetry, he authored two much-loved children’s books and translated Euripides’ Medea, the first translation by an African American of a Greek tragedy. In these pages, Charles Molesworth explores the many ways that race, religion, and Cullen’s sexuality informed the work of one of the unquestioned stars of the Harlem Renaissance.

An authoritative work of biography that brings to life one of the chief voices of his generation, And Bid Him Sing returns to us one of America’s finest lyric poets in all of his complexity and musicality.

 

Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Black Poets of the Twenties
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Edited by Countee Cullen

Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Citadel (August 25, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0806513497
ISBN-13: 978-0806513492
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches

This selection from the work of thirty-eight poets was made by Countee Cullen in 1927. His stated purpose at the time was to bring together a miscellany of deeply appreciated but scattered verse.

Beginning with the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar, who, though there were black poets before him, is generally credited as the first black poet to make a deep impression on the literary world, the book includes the writings of James Weldon Johnson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Jessie Faucet, Sterling A. Brown, Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen himself, to name only a few.

Each poem includes poignant biographical notes written by the poets themselves, with the exception of the notes on Dunbar (written by his wife), Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. (written by his father), and Lula Weeden (written by her mother).

Most of the poets became well known and widely published in the years that followed. These poems remain powerful statements of what it means to be human, whatever the race.

Long out of print, "Caroling Dusk" is a valuable addition to the body of black literature. This is the first time the anthology has appeared in a paperback edition.

 

The Lost Zoo
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by Christopher Cat, Countee Cullen, Brian Pinkney (Illustrator)

Hardcover: 95 pages
Publisher: Silver Burdett Pr (October 1991)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0382242564
ISBN-13: 978-0382242564
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.5 inches

Poems explain why animals such as the Wakeupworld, the Squilililigee, the Sleepamitemore, and the Treasuretit did not get onto Noah's Ark, and are therefore not seen in any zoo today.

 

The Black Christ & Other Poems
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Hardcover: 110 pages
Publisher: Harper & brothers; 1st edition (1929)
Language: English
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces

 

 

 

 

My Lives & how I Lost Them
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with  Christopher Cat & Nubia Owens (Illustrator)