Black BoyJim Tully and Frank Dazey(1926)
A play in which the casting of PAULROBESONin
the lead role appeared to be the only redeeming as-
pect of the production. The play, written by Jim
Tully and Frank Dazey about a young man who en-
joys fleeting fame as a champion boxer, opened at
the Comedy Theatre in October 1926.
Black Christ and Other Poems, The
Countee Cullen(1929)
Published shortly after COUNTEECULLEN’s return
to the United States after a GUGGENHEIMFEL-
LOWSHIPyear in Paris, this was the celebrated au-
thor’s third published volume. It contained
politically charged works that addressed contem-
porary issues such as LYNCHING, controversial cases
such as the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, and the painful
legacies of war represented by such haunting sites
as the grave in Paris at the Arc de Triomphe that is
dedicated to the Unknown Soldier.
The volume included a number of pieces
shaped by traditional English poetic conventions
and “The Black Christ,” a lengthy narrative piece
in which Cullen explored the subject of lynching
from a spiritual perspective. “Hopefully dedicated
to White America,” the narrative poem chronicles
the powerful effect that the victim of white mob
violence is able to have when he reappears to his
grieving family and urges them to rely on God for
justice. Despite the title’s suggestion, Cullen does
not imagine a black savior. Instead, he draws on
the parallels between the crucifixion and resurrec-
tion of Christ and his ability to direct an enduring,
patient love toward his attackers.
The set of 47 poems appeared in three sections,
entitled “Varia,” “Interlude,” and “Color.” The third
and final section, which was the shortest with only
four poems, contained the moving and explosive
poem “The Black Christ.” The volume, like Cullen’s
previous works, was published by HARPER &
BROTHERSand included provocative art deco im-
ages by the white artist Charles Cullen. The poet
dedicated the book to “Three Friends”: Edward,
Roberta, and Harold. “To the Three for Whom the
Book” was the first poem in the volume, and it ex-
tended Cullen’s dedicatory tribute. The lengthy and
vivid narrative that evoked an intense mythological
landscape and mighty figures such as Theseus,
Medusa, and the Minotaur celebrated “three rare /
Friends whom I love / (With rhymes to swear / The
depths whereof)” (ll. 92–95). Cullen went even fur-
ther, justifying his dedication to kindred spirits who
“have not bent / The idolatrous knee, / Nor worship
lent / To modern rites, / Knowing full well / How a
just god smites / The infidel” (ll. 97–103). Immedi-
ately following this poem was “Tribute,” which
Cullen dedicated to his mother. He honored the
lessons that he had learned from her and cited the
powerful “intervention of your face” as the only
force that “[s]pared him with whom was my most
bitter feud” (ll. 11–12).
The first section included poems informed by
history and by political realities. These included
“At the Etoile (At the Unknown Soldier’s Grave in
Paris),” “Two Epitaphs,” which included a poem
“For the Unknown Soldier,” and “For a Child Still-
born,” “Not Sacco and Vanzetti.” The poems
about Paris and the Unknown Soldier were in-
spired by Cullen’s time in Paris as a Guggenheim
Fellow. In the poem “At the Etoile,” Cullen cele-
brated the universality that accompanied the sol-
dier’s anonymity: “Each bit of moving dust in
France may strike / Its breast in pride, knowing he
stands for him” (ll. 11–12). In “Two Epitaphs,” the
second, and much more cryptic tribute to the sol-
dier, Cullen’s narrator insisted again on the enor-
mity of the soldier’s symbolic life and death. “Not
one stilled heart in that torn breast / But a myriad
millions” (ll. 3–4) he insisted, going on to note
that those many hearts could sleep in “Unknown
but not unhonored rest” (l. 1).
Following the set of observant and politically
astute poems in section one were a number of more
personal meditations conveyed primarily in the first
person. These included “One Day I Told My Love,”
a tender poem about a vulnerable lover whose
sweetheart does not abuse his heart but instead
does “a gentle thing” and advises that “ ‘The proper
place for a heart... / ‘Is back in the sheltering
breast’ ” (ll. 13, 15–16). Other confessional poems,
such as “Lesson” and “The Simple Truth,” recog-
nized the powerful assets that others brought to re-
lationships. In the latter, the speaker addresses his
“level-headed lover who / Can match my fever
while the kisses last” (l. 5). The beloved elicits re-
spect because he or she is “never shaken through
and through” and because his or her “roots are firmBlack Christ and Other Poems, The 37