L
Name: _______________________________________ Date: _____________________ Block: __________
Accelerated English 10
Harlem Renaissance
Make the Connection: The history of race relations in the United States is long and tragic, the cause of
much pain and misunderstanding. Knowledge of the great public confrontations such as the Civil War and
the civil rights movement can illuminate that history, but in the end, it may be the personal experiences of
individual blacks and whites that provide us with the deepest understanding of our past and of our possible
future. As you read the following two poems by Cullen, think about the impact of the encounters on the
individuals involved – and on the society in which they lived. A tableau is “a scene or an action stopped
cold,” like a still picture in a reel of film.
Literary Focus: Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech, an imaginative comparison between two unlike things. Some metaphors
are stated directly, using a linking verb: That boy is a streak of lightning. Often they are more indirect. This
poem uses four metaphors to reveal the way the poet feels about the sight of two boys crossing a street.
Watch for the metaphors that end the first and last stanzas.
TABLEAU
(for Donald Duff)
By Countee Cullen
Locked arm in arm they cross the way,
The black boy and the white,
The golden splendor of the day,
The sable pride of night.
From lowered blinds the dark folk stare,
And here the fair folk talk,
Indignant that these two should dare
In unison to walk.
Oblivious to look and word
They pass, and see no wonder
That lightning brilliant as a sword
Should blaze the path of thunder.
L
Questions:
What metaphor in the first stanza describes the black boy? the white boy?
Two more metaphors are used in the third stanza. Who or what is “lightening brilliant as a sword”? Who or
what is “the path of thunder”?
How do the metaphors make you feel about the boys?
Quickwrite: The power of a word to taunt, to criticize, to dehumanize can’t be underestimated. You might
be shaken by the offensive word in this poem – imagine how it would affect a child. Before you read
“Incident,” quickwrite your response to the poem’s title. Does it suggest something serious, or something
relatively minor? How would you react if the title were “Catastrophe”?
L
INCIDENT
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.
Questions:
What do you think leads the “Baltimorean” to act as he does? Are his actions more disturbing or less
disturbing because he is a child? Explain your responses.
Do you think that the content and messages of “Tableau” and “Incident” are relevant only to the time in
which Cullen wrote? Or are the incidents described in these poems still occurring today? Explain.
L
Compare and Contrast! 
“Tableau”
Tone
Images or figures of speech
Message/Theme
“Incident”