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"incident"
Sep. 27th, 2013 12:18 am by Countee Cullen.
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 Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
Countee Cullen, “Incident” from My Soul’s High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen. Copyrights held by the Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, administered by Thompson and Thompson, Brooklyn, NY.
Source: My Soul’s High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen (Anchor Books, 1991)
exploration of the text
1. what is the nature of interaction between the two boys?
the nature of the interaction between the two boys reflects the influence of social stigma of racial prejudice apparent in the society of that time.
2. why does the speaker remembers nothing more than the incident, even though he stayed in Baltimore from "May until December?
the speaker remembers the incident particularly because it was one of the most psychologically scarring experience that a child has to face; the bitter truth of racism. it was an experience that's impossible to forget especially if it happens for the first time to a young children.
the reading/writing connection
1. in a paragraph compare your experience of prejudice with the persona in the poem.
i may not share the same racial prejudice experience as the persona; but what i do can compare is how i faced the same dilemma of being misjudged when i was child, much like the persona's age when he first experienced his. i received glares and whispers solely for being a lone child who doesn't feel like smiling and chasing her diverging peers. what i can relate to the persona is how's the feeling of being the target of collective hate; where you can't even comprehend the rational of being mistreated that way and how you could only let it slowly tumor your psyche into adulthood.
ideas for writing
1. what do its form and rhyme add to this poem?
at a glance the poem may seemed to have an inconsistent rhyme of a, b, c, b for all its three stanzas but the hint of it is still there in every 2nd and 4th lines, which contributes to the poem in terms of keeping all the important messages still focused and in a neat line of form.
2. what is the power of language? what are the effects of the use of the term nigger ?
the power of language are so great that it could make or break someone's day, or life. even in the simplest form of word it could affect someone in a way that we never thought it could before. like the use of the term 'nigger', it was apparent how the word holds a particular affliction to the persona that it was the only quoted phrased he used in the poem; one which also he claimed to be all he remembered of Baltimore. it shows how deep the effect of that term is to the persona that it still scars him in his adulthood.
exploration of the text
1. what is the nature of interaction between the two boys?
the nature of the interaction between the two boys reflects the influence of social stigma of racial prejudice apparent in the society of that time.
2. why does the speaker remembers nothing more than the incident, even though he stayed in Baltimore from "May until December?
the speaker remembers the incident particularly because it was one of the most psychologically scarring experience that a child has to face; the bitter truth of racism. it was an experience that's impossible to forget especially if it happens for the first time to a young children.
the reading/writing connection
1. in a paragraph compare your experience of prejudice with the persona in the poem.
i may not share the same racial prejudice experience as the persona; but what i do can compare is how i faced the same dilemma of being misjudged when i was child, much like the persona's age when he first experienced his. i received glares and whispers solely for being a lone child who doesn't feel like smiling and chasing her diverging peers. what i can relate to the persona is how's the feeling of being the target of collective hate; where you can't even comprehend the rational of being mistreated that way and how you could only let it slowly tumor your psyche into adulthood.
ideas for writing
1. what do its form and rhyme add to this poem?
at a glance the poem may seemed to have an inconsistent rhyme of a, b, c, b for all its three stanzas but the hint of it is still there in every 2nd and 4th lines, which contributes to the poem in terms of keeping all the important messages still focused and in a neat line of form.
2. what is the power of language? what are the effects of the use of the term nigger ?
the power of language are so great that it could make or break someone's day, or life. even in the simplest form of word it could affect someone in a way that we never thought it could before. like the use of the term 'nigger', it was apparent how the word holds a particular affliction to the persona that it was the only quoted phrased he used in the poem; one which also he claimed to be all he remembered of Baltimore. it shows how deep the effect of that term is to the persona that it still scars him in his adulthood.
