The 13 poems in “Varia” included “Suicide Chant”
and “In Memory of Col. Charles Young” as well as
religious poems based on Judas Iscariot and the
Virgin Mary and a tribute to John Keats, the
British Romantic poet.
Cullen’s foreword to the volume was a vivid
13-stanza poem in which he addressed his readers,
considered his own mortality, made a plea for his
own biography, and offered his perspectives on
how his collection might best serve readers. He
characterized Coloras “Juice of the first / Grapes
of my vine,” as a “red rose,” and as “[s]eed of my
sowing / And work of my days.” His most explicit
directive to readers corresponded with the natural
images that he used to describe his work. “Drink
while my blood / Colors the wine,” he urged,
“Reach while the bud / Is still on the vine.”
Cullen’s foreword also revealed his early concern
with his literary reputation and the record of his
accomplishments. “A little while, / Too brief at
most, / And even my smile / Will be a ghost,” he
mused before asking “who shall trace / The path I
took?” His concern about having the story of his
life told and passed on is a noticeable theme in
the poem. “Who shall declare / my whereabouts; /
Say if in the air / My being shouts / Along light
ways, / Or if in the sea, / Or deep earth stays / The
germ of me?” he asked pointedly. In the last stan-
zas of his prefatory poem, Cullen encouraged read-
ers to consider the volume as a timeless and
incorruptible means of recovering his youth. He
insisted that readers “Turn to this book / Of the
singing me” in order to get “a springtime look / At
the wintry tree.”
Herbert Gorman, who reviewed Cullen’s first
volume for The New York Times,was convinced
that the book revealed Cullen’s “unmistakable lyric
gift that is out of the ordinary.” He was equally in-
sistent that “it is not often that men of his blood
reveal so deep and so modern a sensitivity to the
poetic urge, and consequently his excellence
stands out all the more vividly.” While Gorman’s
enthusiastic praise of Cullen was merited, his com-
ments reveal the widespread unfamiliarity with the
long-established African-American poetical tradi-
tion that included powerful and eloquent 18th-
and 19th-century poets such as Jupiter Hammon,
George Moses Horton, James Monroe Whitfield,
and Daniel Payne. Recognizing Cullen’s already
well-established record of excellence, Gorman
noted that “[t]here is much that is arresting here,
love poems that are sensitive and compelling and
faint satire that is unmistakably piercing” (NYT, 8
November 1925, X15). Poet STERLINGBROWNre-
garded the volume highly because it contained the
“most polished lyricism of modern Negro poetry”
(Wintz, 118). Cullen also received high praise for
Colorfrom his peers and the recognized deans of
the Harlem Renaissance period such as W. E. B.
DUBOISand ALAINLOCKE, both of whom were
unanimous in their praise for the work and its pow-
erful example of sophisticated African-American
literary endeavor.
The wider African-American response to
Colorrevealed an intriguing focus on the book’s
contribution to the literary racial aesthetic of the
day. As critic Michael Lomax notes, a number of
well-known writers and civil rights leaders praised
the volume for its racial commentaries. Jessie
Fauset, who described the poems as “beautifully
done,” admitted that she was “convinced” of
Cullen’s ability to express “colored-ness in a world
of whiteness” and hoped aloud that “he will not be
deflected from continuing to do that of which he
has made such a brave, and beautiful beginning”
(Lomax, 241). WALTERWHITE of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo-
ple suggested that Cullen’s “race and its sufferings
give him depth and an understanding of pain and
sorrow” (Lomax 240). Cullen’s debut volume in-
spired many and revealed the poet’s own double
consciousness, his awareness of his burgeoning
identity as one of America’s best poets and his role
as an African-American writer at a time when
one’s representations of race frequently were used
to define the quality, range, and power of a writer’s
work.Bibliography
Brown, Sterling. “Contemporary Negro Poetry.” In Re-
membering the Harlem Renaissance, edited by Cary
Wintz.New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996:
108–129.
Davis, Arthur. “The Alien-and-Exile Theme in Countee
Cullen’s Racial Poems.” Phylon (1940–1956)14, no.
4 (1953): 390–400.
Gorman, Herbert. “A Poet of the Plains.” New York
Times,8 November 1925, X15.Color 85