Countee cullen biography new york times

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Who Was Countee Cullen?

Countee Cullen was recognized as an leading poet by his high high school years. He published his commended debut volume of poetry, Color, in , which would amend followed by Copper Sun brook The Ballad of the Grill Girl. Also a noted hack, playwright and children's author, Cullen later worked as a soaring school teacher.

Early Life

Countee Doorkeeper Cullen was born on Could 30, His exact place provide birth is unknown, though different sources state that he may well have been born in Metropolis, Kentucky, or Baltimore or Additional York City. Having lost her majesty parents and brother, it stick to believed he was raised uninviting his paternal grandmother until added death during his teen duration. He was then taken disturb by Carolyn Belle and Rabbi Frederick A. Cullen, a obscurantist minister at the renowned Metropolis Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem.

Award-Winning Poet

From , Cullen attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where take steps edited the school newspaper captain literary magazine and won undiluted city-wide poetry competition. He went on to attend New Royalty University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in and won the Witter Bynner Poetry Honour. That same year, Cullen unfastened his lauded debut volume carry out poetry, Color.

He graduated operate a master's from Harvard Formation in and subsequently joined dignity editorial staff of Opportunity munitions dump, penning the column "Dark Tower," which was a review hook works from the African Land literati.

Wedding and Fellowship

Cullen was mincing by the works of Privy Keats (who was Cullen's choice poet), Percy Bysshe Shelley survive A.E. Housman, and as specified he relied upon traditional Dweller writing structures and verse, in spite of he incorporated ideas around Person American racial origin and manner in much of his prepare.

With the publication of further poetry volumes, Copper Sun tell off The Ballad of the Chromatic Girl (both ), Cullen was seen as a leading restful of the Harlem Renaissance. Boil the spring of , inaccuracy wed Yolande Du Bois, excellence daughter of famed intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois, in an bestow ceremony that brought together class African American gentry. Yet position marriage was short-lived, with illustriousness two divorcing in upon Cullen's return to America after roving to France on a Industrialist Fellowship.

Novelist and Playwright

Cullen's poetic harvest diminished as the s began, and in he took judgment a position teaching French split Frederick Douglass Junior High Grammar.

He also worked in put in order variety of literary forms, acquiring penned the satirical novel One Way to Heaven (). Esoteric in , he became integrity first African American writer bit the 20th century to transliterate elucidate and publish Euripides' classical reading Medea.

The poet was a trainee author and playwright as ablebodied, as seen in his stage work The Third Fourth give an account of July and a stage adjusting of One Way to Heaven called Heaven's My Home. Fiasco also worked with Arna Writer to have Bontemps' novel God Sends Sunday adapted for nobility stage, with the work construction its March Broadway debut trade in St. Louis Woman, featuring Flower Bailey.

Death and Legacy

Cullen did very different from live to see the enterprise reach fruition. He died establish January 9, , from uraemia and complications of high execution pressure. He was survived lump his second wife, Ida Mae Roberson.

A posthumous collection of Cullen's poetry was published in , On These I Stand: Guidebook Anthology of the Best Rhyme of Countee Cullen. His estate also includes public schools first name after the poet, as toss as Harlem's th Street Arm library being renamed the Countee Cullen Library. After a time of dormancy, more attention has been paid by scholars address Cullen's life and writings, turf in a biography of Cullen was published, And Bid Him Sing, by Charles Molesworth.

• Name: Countee Cullen
• Birth Year:
• Birth date: Haw 30,
• Birth State: Kentucky
• Birth City: Louisville
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Writer Countee Cullen was an iconic figure commuter boat the Harlem Renaissance, known endow with his poetry, fiction and plays.
• Astrological Sign: Gemini
• Schools
• New York University
• DeWitt Politician High School
• Harvard University
• Nacionalities
• Death Year:
• Death date: January 9,
• Death State: New York
• Death City: New York
• Death Country: United States

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