Countee
Cullen won
more major literary prizes than any other black writer of the
1920s: first prize in the Witter Bynner Poetry contest in 1925, Poetry
magazine's John Reed Memorial Prize, the Amy Spin garn Award of the
Crisis magazine, second prize in Opportunity magazine's first
poetry contest, and second prize in the poetry contest of Palms. In
addition, he was the second black to win a Guggenheim Fellowship.
One March 30, 1903 Countee Cullen, was born. His grandmother raised him until she died. When she passed away, a couple by the name of Reverend Frederick A. and Carolyn Belle (Mitchell) Cullen adopted him. His adoption was never official. No one is sure where exactly he was born. Many say he was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but later when Cullen became famous, he said that he was born in New York.
Cullen attended DeWitt Clinton High School (1918-1921). He edited the school's newspaper, assisted in editing the literary magazine, Magpie, and began to write poetry that achieved notice. He says he really got into poetry "When I was in my second term at Clinton. My English teacher, Mr. Cronin, had an idea that high school students could write acceptable verse. I wrote the poem, 'To A Swimmer,' and received my mark of 'A' or 'B' and thought no more about it until much later a friend showed me the poem in a copy of the magazine, 'Modern School.' Mr. Cronin, in an article in the magazine, had used my poem to illustrate his point."
Cullen was a very intelligent individual. He went to school at New York University (1921-1925), which is where he wrote many of his poems for his book Color (1925), Copper Sun (1927), and The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927). After graduating from NYU he attend Harvard University (1925-1927). He graduated from Harvard with a masters in French and English.
On April 9,1928 he married Yolande Dubois at the Salem Methodist Church in Harlem. A teacher in Baltimore, Yolande was the only child of W.E.B. Dubois, the founder and editor of the NAACP publication, The Crisis. After a brief honeymoon the couple went to France and Cullen pursued his Guggenheim research. A third volume of poetry, The Ballad of the Brown Girl, was published in 1928 and a fourth, The Black Christ and Other Poems, came the following year.Cullen liked to write about his culture. His use of racial themes in his verse was striking at the time. His material was never alike and every poem he wrote had a different fell to it.
In 1934, Cullen began teaching English and French at Frederick Douglass Junior High School on West 140th Street in Harlem. He was faculty adviser to the literary club and taught James Baldwin. Both he and Baldwin were adopted by fundamental ministers, attended De Witt Clinton High School, edited the school's literary magazine and became celebrated writers.
Cullen died on January 9,1946 at the age of 42 from complications resulting from high blood pressure.
Published Works
Color
(1925)
Caroling
Dusk (1927)
Copper
Sun (1927)
The
Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927)
The
Book of American Negro Poetry (rev. ed., 1931)
One
Way to Heaven (1934)
The
Lost Zoo(1940)
On
These I Stand (1947)