*Waring Cuney was born on this date in 1906. He was a Black poet and composer. The son of Norris Wright Cuney II and Madge Louise Baker, William Waring Cuney was born in Washington, DC.

no images. Both the poem and this song are speaking about how black women are breaking free, in a way, from social and masculine judgement and learning how to love themselves for who they are.

the Bronx

One three centuries removed From the scenes his fathers loved, Spicy grove, cinnamon tree, What is Africa to me?

In “Heritage” the poet specifically engages the question of how a person’s self-esteem is affected by ethnicity and the desire to be proud of one’s ancestry. This was a particularly troublesome issue for black Americans.

“Yet Do I Marvel” Speaker The speaker of this poem is a poet and a Black man, and as such, resembles Cullen himself in some important ways.

Cullen starts off by describing God in conventional terms as “good, well-meaning, kind,” but then progresses to question God. He states that he realizes that, as a human, he is like a blind mole…

The poem is written from the perspective of a Black poet. It is not clear if the narrator is Cullen himself or not. But, the tone of the poem is clear. The poet focuses on his doubts and confusions about the world, about the relationship between God and humans and about his own specific role and place in the world.

“Yet Do I Marvel” is a sonnet. There are basically two types of sonnets: the Italian and the English. We’ll focus on the English sonnet, since that is the form Cullen uses. This sonnet is fourteen lines long (all sonnets are, traditionally), and employs a regular rhyme scheme.

By Countee Cullen The titles of poems are always curious little buggers, and in this case, the title appears in line 13 of the poem. The poem tracks the speaker’s thought process. So as he considers the paradox of a good God that allows harm in the world, the poem becomes that process of inquiring into the mind of God.

The two characters represent the sufferings of humans and the speaker does not understand how God could allow something so horrible to take place. Within the allusion, Cullen includes a metaphor in which he compares the flesh of Tantalus and Sisyphus to the flesh of God.

Tantalus, Greek Tantalos, in Greek legend, son of Zeus or Tmolus (a ruler of Lydia) and the nymph or Titaness Pluto (Plouto) and the father of Niobe and Pelops. (2) He offended the gods by killing his son Pelops and serving him to them in order to test their power of observation.

In the poem “Yet Do I Marvel” there are two classical references made to Greek mythology, with the mention of Sisyphus and Tantalus. Tantalus was the son of Zeus and king of Sipylos. He shared the food of the gods, but was punished for eating his son Pelops, his punishment was to be a slave to hunger and thirst.

To struggle up a never-ending stair. What awful brain compels His awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

Tantalus and Sisyphus are both ghosts in Hades that are tortured endlessly. Tantalus is a man who stands in a pool of fresh water, but every time he tries to drink, the water moves out of his reach. This shows Odysseus that Hades is not as good as he might think, because of the brutal fates of Tantalus and Sisyphus.