34 Facts About Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen was brought to Harlem at the age of nine by Amanda Porter, believed to be his paternal grandmother, who cared for him until her death in 1917.

Frederick Cullen was a central figure in Countee's life, and acted as his father.

Countee Cullen entered the DeWitt Clinton High School, then located in Hell's Kitchen.

Countee Cullen excelled academically at the school and started writing poetry.

Also in 1923, Countee Cullen won second prize in the Witter Bynner National Competitions for Undergraduate Poetry, sponsored by the Poetry Society of America, for his book of poems titled, "The Ballad of the Brown Girl".

Countee Cullen competed in a poetry contest sponsored by Opportunity and came in second with "To One Who Say Me Nay", losing to Langston Hughes's "The Weary Blues".

Countee Cullen graduated from NYU in 1925 and was one of eleven students selected to Phi Beta Kappa.

That same year, Countee Cullen entered Harvard to pursue a master's in English, and published Color, his first collection of poems that later became a landmark of the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1926, Countee Cullen graduated with a master's degree while serving as the guest editor of a special "Negro Poets" issue of the poetry magazine, Palms.

In March 1923, Countee Cullen wrote to Locke about Carpenter's work: "It opened up for me soul windows which had been closed; it threw a noble and evident light on what I had begun to believe, because of what the world believes, ignoble and unnatural".

Countee Cullen subsequently had relationships with many different men, although each ended poorly.

Countee Cullen later married Ida Robertson while potentially in a relationship with Atkinson.

Countee Cullen was the surviving child of W E B Du Bois and his first wife Nina Gomer Du Bois, whose son had died as an infant.

Countee Cullen's parents owned a summer home in Pleasantville, New Jersey near the Jersey Shore, and Yolande and her family were likely vacationing in the area when they first met.

Every detail of the wedding, including the rail car used for transportation and Countee Cullen receiving the marriage license four days prior to the wedding day, was considered big news and was reported to the public by the African-American press.

Countee Cullen was not flamboyant with any of his relationships.

Countee Cullen married Ida Mae Roberson in 1940 and lived, apparently happily, with her until his death in 1946.

Countee Cullen saw Negritude as an awakening of a race consciousness and black modernism that flowed into Harlem.

Countee Cullen maintained close friendships with two other prominent writers, Hughes and Alain Locke.

Countee Cullen was at the epicenter of this new-found surge in literature.

Countee Cullen worked as assistant editor for Opportunity magazine, where his column, "The Dark Tower", increased his literary reputation.

Between the years 1928 and 1934, Countee Cullen traveled back and forth between France and the United States.

The title poem of The Black Christ and Other Poems was criticized for its use of Christian religious imagery; Countee Cullen compared the lynching of a black man to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Countee Cullen worked with Arna Bontemps to adapt Bontemps's 1931 novel God Sends Sunday as the musical St Louis Woman.

Several years later, Countee Cullen died from high blood pressure and uremic poisoning on January 9,1946, aged 42.

Countee Cullen is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.

Countee Cullen was a firm believer that poetry surpassed race and that it could be used to bring the races closer together.

Countee Cullen developed his Eurocentric style of writing from his exposure to Graeco-Roman Classics and English Literature, work he was exposed to while attending universities like New York University and Harvard.

Countee Cullen was influenced by the Romantics and studied subjects of love, romance, and religion.

Countee Cullen believed using a more traditional style of writing poetry would allow African Americans to build bridges between the black and white communities.

Countee Cullen discusses the psychology of African Americans in his writings and gives an extra dimension that forces the reader to see a harsh reality of Americas past time.

In "Heritage", Countee Cullen grapples with the separation of his African culture and history created by the institution of slavery.

In some of the poems, Countee Cullen equates the suffering of Christ in his crucifixion and the suffering of African Americans.

Yet, Countee Cullen was attracted to something both pagan as well as Christian.