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Countee cullen poems
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Biography

1903 - 1946

“There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.' In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things - read and write - and wait.”

– Countee Cullen

In high school, Countee Cullen won a citywide competition for his poem ‘I Have a Rendezvous with Life.’ After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from NYU, Cullen attended Harvard. By the time he earned his Master’s Degree he had become the most popular black poet in America – releasing the poetry collections Color (1925), Copper Sun (1927), and The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1928). Soon he was the most representative voice of the Harlem Renaissance, winning more literary prizes than any other African American author. In 1928 he became only the second African American to win a Guggenheim Fellowship. Though romantically linked to Alain Locke, in 1929 Cullen married the only child of W.E.B. Du Bois. After her divorce from Cullen a year later, she told her father that he had revealed to her that he was sexually attracted to men. In 1929 h

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After finishing college at New York University and beginning a master’s degree at Harvard, Cullen published his first volume of poetry, Color. During the next four years, Cullen published his own poems and edited poetry by other African Americans. In 1928, he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to write poetry in France. In 1932, Cullen published his only novel, One Way To Heaven, a social comedy of the disparity between lower-class African Americans and the elite of New York City. Although he often focused on racial ideas and discrimination, Cullen was never considered radical and was often criticized by the African American community for being too “safe.”

Countee Cullen was very secretive about his life. Most of his friends, including Alain Locke, Harold Jackman, Carl Van Vechten, and Leland Pettit were openly gay. It was later confirmed by his first wife that the reason for their divorce was because Cullen was sexually attracted to men. Cullen’s poetry is often taught in the context of queer culture today.

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Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen was born Countee LeRoy Porter on May 30, 1903, likely in Louisville, Kentucky. He attended De Witt Clinton High School in New York City and began writing poetry at the age of fourteen. When he was fifteen, he was unofficially adopted by F. A. Cullen, the minister of a Methodist church in Harlem.

Cullen entered New York University after high school. Around the same time, his poems were published in The Crisis, under the leadership of W. E. B. Du Bois, and Opportunity, a magazine published by the National Urban League. Cullen was soon after published in Harper’s, the Century Magazine, and Poetry. He won several awards for his poem, “Ballad of the Brown Girl,” and graduated from New York University in 1925. That same year, he published his first volume of verse, Color (Harper & Bros., 1925), and was admitted to Harvard University, where he completed an MA in English.

Cullen went on to publish several more poetry collections, including On These I Stand: An Anthology of the Best Poems of Countee Cullen&