Poem by Countee Cullen

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, ”Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Balimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.

1. Uncle Jim
2. In Memory of Col. Charles Young
3. The Unknown Color
4. For My Grandmother
5. Red

Print

1693 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version