Color (AmazonClassics Edition)

Countee Cullen was already a prominent literary figure when he published Color, his auspicious debut collection of poetry. In deceptively simple verse, and in harmony with lyric tradition rather than rebellion against it, Cullen covered such complex terrain as race, faith, mortality, sexuality, and identity. Cullen may be less well known today than his contemporaries, but his emotional candor, creative ambition, and impudent humor retain an unforgettable spark. Cullen’s work in Color speaks to many universal themes, but it also serves, ultimately, as a deeply personal self-portrait by one of the richest and most distinguished voices of the Harlem Renaissance.

Revised edition: Previously published as Color, this edition of Color (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.

Countee Cullen (1903–1946) was a leading literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance, with a writing career spanning poetry, novels, plays, and children’s books.

Citing both New York City and Louisville, Kentucky, as his birthplace, Countee was unofficially adopted by Reverend Frederick A. Cullen, future president of the Harlem chapter of the NAACP, and his wife, Carolyn. Excelling academically, Cullen wrote award-winning lyric poetry at an early age for such publications as Harper’s, The Crisis, and Opportunity. In 1925, the same year he graduated from New York University, Cullen published Color, his first poetry collection. Cullen is also the author of several other collections, including Copper Sun and The Black Christ and Other Poems; two works for young readers, The Lost Zoo and My Lives and How I Lost Them; the novel One Way to Heaven; the Broadway musical St. Louis Woman; and a translation of Euripides’s Medea. In 2013, Countee Cullen was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.