Incident by Countee Cullen

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.

Explorations of the Text

1.   What is the nature of the interaction between the two boys?

     

       Different of racism between two boys, includes prejudice to one another.

2.   Why does the speaker remember nothing more than the incident, even though he stayed in Baltimore from “May until December”?

The speaker was taken aback by that incident where he received bad treatment from Baltimoreans. The memories are so complicated for him to forget.

The Reading/Writing Connection

1.   In a paragraph compare your experience of prejudice with the persona in the poem.

      

      From my experience before, certain people are prejudice when I speak in English. They will point me out for bragging or showing off to the other classmates which sometimes makes me feel scared to speak before. However, I kind of overcome that problem because I originally speak English with my family sometimes.

Ideas for Writing

1.   What do its form and rhyme add to this poem?

    

     The poem is a quatrain that has 3 stanzas and each stanza contains 4 lines. The rhyme scheme of this poem is A,B,C,B.

2.   What is the power of language? What are the effects of the use of term nigger?

Language is so powerful that it could move a person’s heart either in a good way or a bad way. It could also change people. Nigger is a taboo word for African American people, so the term “nigger” could trigger a fray between the speakers which can become worst.