11 ordspråk av Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen
[W]e have always resented the natural inclination of most white people to demand spirituals the moment it is known that a Negro is about to sing. So often the request has seemed to savor of the feeling that we could do this and this alone.
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For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.
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If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.
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If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.
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My poetry, I think, has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.
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So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
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The key to all strange things is in thy heart..../ My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.
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The play is done, the crowds depart; and see / That twisted tortured thing hung from a tree, / Swart victim of a newer Calvary.
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There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call the "breaks." In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things -- read and write -- and wait.
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Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
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Your love to me was like an unread book . . .
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