Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
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nlike most other poets of his time, Countee Cullen used traditionforms and methods. However, no poet expressed the general Senti.ments of American blacks during the early 1900's more eloquent,than Cullen. Cullen was born in New York City. He graduated from New YorkUniversity and later earned a master's degree from Harvard. His ir |collection of poetry, Color, was published in 1925. This was followeyby Copper Sun (1927), The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927), and TheBlack Christ (1929). In 1932 he published One Way to Heaven,satirical novel about life in Harlem. During his later years he pub. |lished two children’s books, The Lost Zoo (1940) and My Lives ani.How | Lost Them (1942). Cullen was one of the leaders of the movement to construct anintellectual and aesthetic culture for blacks in America, especially forthose who had come from the South to New York City in the early1900's. He claimed all of American and English literature as the lterary heritage of blacks. In “Any Human to Another,” one of Cullen’s best-known poems,he expresses the despair of black people.
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