Cunard, Nancy(1897–1965)
The British editor of Negro: An Anthology(1934), a
collection of impressive scope that included a vari-
ety of articles relating to black life. She solicited
contributions from well-known Harlem Renais-
sance writers, many of whom she included in the
volume. JEANTOOMER, who had by this time de-
cided that he would not identify himself as a
Negro, declined her invitation. Cunard was a spir-
ited rebel, one whose communist affiliations were a
direct rejection of her family’s shipping fortune,
and whose interracial relationship was, among
other things, a means to challenge social prejudice.
Bibliography
Ford, Hugh. Nancy Cunard: Brave Poet, Indomitable Rebel
1896–1965.Philadelphia: Chilton, 1968.
Cuney, (William) Waring(1906–unknown)
A musician who trained at the prestigious New
England Conservatory of Music in BOSTON, Cuney
published regularly during the Harlem Renais-
sance. Born in WASHINGTON, D.C., he went on to
attend HOWARDUNIVERSITYin the city. He later
enrolled at LINCOLNUNIVERSITYin Pennsylvania.
He won first prize in the 1926 literary contest
sponsored by OPPORTUNITY.While a music stu-
dent in Boston, he enjoyed the distinction of see-
ing seven of his poems included in COUNTEE
CULLEN’s 1927 volume, CAROLINGDUSK:ANAN-
THOLOGY OFVERSE BYNEGROPOETSwhile he was
a music student in Boston. WILLIAM STANLEY
BRAITHEWAITEincluded Cuney’s work in one of
his highly selective volumes of the ANTHOLOGY OF
MAGAZINEVERSE. In 1931 JAMESWELDONJOHN-
SON included eight of Cuney’s poems in THE
BOOK OFAMERICANNEGROPOETRY.He also pub-
lished in The Forumand in PALMS.
Cuney, whom scholars regard as a talented but
minor poet of the Harlem Renaissance, enjoyed a
delightful and lively friendship with LANGSTON
HUGHES, whom he met while living in Washing-
ton, D.C. Arnold Rampersad, Hughes’s biographer,
reports that Cuney, Hughes, and BRUCENUGENT
became inseparable and were prone to staging dra-
matic farces that ranged from pretending to speak
foreign languages to walking in public without
shoes. It was Cuney, a Lincoln University graduate
himself, who suggested to Langston Hughes that
he attend Lincoln University. Hughes, who found
himself depressed by the weather and stodgy
Washington, D.C. environment, took his friend’s
advice and enrolled at Lincoln in 1926.
Cuney was one of the writers who published in
the promising but short-lived black journal, FIRE!!.
His poem “Death Bed” appeared alongside works
by Hughes, ZORA NEALE HURSTON, Countee
Cullen, and GWENDOLYNBENNETT, and drawings
by AARONDOUGLAS. His works were diverse in
theme and style and ranged from spiritual reflec-
tions to understated romantic commentaries on
love and rejection. His poem “Dust,” like Hughes’s
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” offers a powerful
contemplation of the ancient African past from
which American Negroes had been so abruptly
severed. Cuney also recognized the rigors of daily
life endured by so many African Americans; works
like “True Love” offered respectful and ennobling
tributes to those like the unwavering female sub-
ject in the poem who transcended the grim reali-
ties and managed to love “in a tenement / Where
the only music / She hears / Is the cry of street car
brakes / And the toot of automobile horns / And
the drip of a kitchen spigot / All day.” Cuney’s
work contributed to the substantial canon of black
domestic literature that produced a powerful com-
ment on black life in the early 20th century.Bibliography
Cullen, Countee. Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by
Negro Poets.New York: Harper & Brothers Publish-
ers, 1927.
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: I, Too,
Sing America.Vol. 1: 1902–1941.New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.Curtwright, Wesley(1910–unknown)
This Brunswick, Georgia, native migrated north to
HARLEMafter his father died. In the city, he en-
rolled in HARLEMACADEMY, the Seventh-Day Ad-
ventist school in which ARNABONTEMPSbegan
teaching in 1924. By 1927, the 17-year-old student
poet had published in OPPORTUNITYand the MES-
SENGERand had been selected for inclusion in
COUNTEE CULLEN’s 1927 anthology, CAROLING
DUSK:AN ANTHOLOGY OF VERSE BY NEGROCurtwright, Wesley 109