For A Poet

“For a Poet” by Countee Cullen was originally published in Cullen’s first collection, Color (1925). The release of Cullen’s collection marked the early ascendancy of one of the principal poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Color retains its potency today, with its entangled depictions of African American lives facing a crisis of identity. The collection portrays African Americans struggling with finding their place within the white-European culture in which they were raised while longing for a half-conceived past in an Africa from which they have been formally sundered, particularly in its most famous poem, “Heritage.”

“For a Poet” features a speaker, presumably Cullen, who describes in a metaphorical manner the measures he must take in order to protect his dreams. This was particularly relevant in Cullen’s experience as a Black bisexual man in the 1920s. The poem is tinged with sadness and loneliness, however, as the implication is that the speaker will never be able to realize, fully at least, their dreams.

It is a curious poem to find in the debut collection of a poet burgeoning with potential, though one that is not out of place for Cullen. The poet struggled to define his own place in terms of his sexuality, and as a poet who was raised and educated in western European culture yet asked to define a new cultural identity.