Countee Cullen Research Paper

Countee Cullen was one of the most influential African American poets during the Harlem Renaissance. He had a very unsettled life during his childhood and teenage years. He was the second black poet to win a Guggenheim Fellowship (Morris). Through all the trials and hardships, he went through during his childhood and adult life he became remarkably successful in his career as a poet. Countee Cullen was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1903 (Lawlor), although there are mixed opinions since he kept his life very private. In his early years in Louisville, he lived with his biological father and mother John Henry Porter and Elizabeth Lucus (Hubbard). He was born out of wedlock so he could not stay with them in Louisville. So, he was sent to New …show more content…
(Daniel) However, his mother Carolyn Bell Cullen influenced his love for music; he loved her singing. During his adult life Cullen, pursued his education to the fullest due to his father's impact after he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1922 and went on to New York University in the fall of 1923. During his time at NYU, he was a Phi Beta Kappa and won first place in the Witter Byran poetry contest and got his bachelor's degree (Lawlor). Right after he got his bachelors in 1925, he went off to Harvard to get his master's in English and French. Countee Cullen was a gay man in the 18th century, so to save himself from the world he did what anyone would have done at that time. So, he married the only offspring of the famous W.E.B Du Bois, Yolande Du Bois, on 10 April 1928. It was the social event of the year in Harlem and the black community nationwide, over 3,000 people at his Father's church. (Daniel) Countee Cullen went on a trip to France without his wife and had an affair with Harold Jackman due to the allegations of Cullen being gay. Countee Cullen and his wife Yolande Du Bois divorced in …show more content…
Later, he explained that he would send his mother a monthly check to support her when she was living. During Countee Cullens time he was the most popular African American poet, articles about him state he was” an outstanding poet” and “deserved more attention". But with anything there will always be critics, most were about his sexuality, and some said his poems were to fill him and add more value to his life. Shackelford -. He was so successful due to the fact that he was the first African American to have anything published by a white publishing company and no African American author had ever been so widely published before in his time (Daniel). By the time that he got his bachelor's from NYU he had published poems in Century, Harper's Magazine, The American Mercury, The Nation, Poetry Magazine, Vanity Fair, and Palms. His good friend Walter White, an assistant executive of the NAACP, helped introduce Cullen to power structures in American publishing. He then got a special issue in Palms and became the assistant editor of Opportunity (Daniel). He also won the John Reed Memorial Prize and the Amy Springer Award. Countee Cullen also won many poetry

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