From The Dark Tower

“Yet Do I Marvel” by Countee Cullen (1925)

This is one of the poems from Cullen’s first book, Color, which helped to make him famous. Like “From the Dark Tower,” the poem is a sonnet. It describes some of the unanswerable questions about life that God could no doubt answer if he so chose, such as why he made the mole blind, and why humans, made in the image of God, have to die. The sonnet concludes with another example, which the poet regards as quite remarkable: “Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: / To make a poet black, and bid him sing!” (Lines 13-14). These are perhaps the two most quoted lines in all of Cullen’s verse. They reveal that in Cullen’s time, Black people were not expected to become poets and the existence of a Black poet was therefore worthy of comment. Notable also is the poet’s confidence that the words “black” and “poet” can belong together, whatever people might expect.

“To Certain Critics” by Countee Cullen (1929)

Cullen was sometimes criticized for not focusing more on racial injustice in his poetry. One such critic was Cullen’s friend Langston Hughes, a fellow poet of the Harlem Renaissance. In this poem, Cullen replies to the critics who have called him a traitor to his race. He points out that pain and sorrow are not exclusive to one race but are experienced by all humankind: “sorrow plaits her dismal leaf / For all” (Lines 11-12). Therefore, there is no reason why he should write solely about Black people.

“Confession” by Countee Cullen (1927)

This poem was published in Cullen’s Copper Sun, in the same section that “From the Dark Tower” appeared. Like that poem, it also uses imagery drawn from nature to express the discrimination that the poet, as a Black man, forcibly endures. Even if he should be joyful for a day, the speaker says, it does not mean that the deep pain he experienced from racism has healed.