For A Poet

“Heritage” by Countee Cullen (1925)

In his most famous poem, Cullen conducts an artistic examination of the expected subject matter of African American poets and the assumptions of the Négritude movement. It is a long poem of irregular stanzas composed of rhyming couplets that evoke the common traits of African art, lush forests and exotic animals, while questioning the reception of these subjects amidst affluent and largely indifferent white audiences. Cullen’s growing anger is palpable throughout the poem, and it concludes with a similar form of self-council to “For a Poet,” in which Cullen recognizes that he must repress his hate and wrath to continue on as an artist.

“My Little Dreams” by Georgia Douglas Johnson (1918)

A poem with a strikingly similar sentiment to “For a Poet,” Johnson’s eight-line poem includes the action of hiding one’s dreams away, and it uses this image as an initiating and concluding refrain. Johnson was another prominent poet of the Harlem Renaissance, and her home became an important meeting place for artists and poets of the time. The similarity of Johnson’s sentiment to Cullen’s speaks to a bitter commonality shared by the poets of the Harlem Renaissance and is another striking testimony to the self-repression African American poets felt was necessary for wider acceptance.