Thoughts in a zoo
Countee Cullen’s poem “Thoughts in a Zoo” was published in 1926, when it won second place in a poetry contest sponsored by “The Crisis”, the official magazine of the US’ National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). That same year, Cullen earned a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University. The poem was subsequently included in Cullen’s second collection of verse, “Copper Sun”, published the following year.
Born Countee LeRoy Porter, Cullen was born on 30 May 1903. His place of birth is undetermined. He died on 9 January 1946 in New York City, US, at the age of 42.
A poet, novelist, children’s writer, and playwright, Cullen was well known during the Harlem Renaissance. By the time he was pursuing his master’s degree in English at Harvard University, he had already published Color, his first collection of poems, which celebrated black beauty and deplored the effects of racism.
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They in their cruel traps, and we in ours, Survey each other’s rage, and pass the hours Commiserating each the other’s woe, To mitigate his own pain’s fiery glow. Man could but little proffer in exchange Save that his cages have a larger range. That lion with his lordly, untamed heart Has in some man his human counterpart, Some lofty soul in dreams and visions wrapped, But in the stifling flesh securely trapped. Gaunt eagle whose raw pinions stain the bars That prison you, so men cry for the stars! Some delve down like the mole far underground, (Their nature is to burrow, not to bound), Some, like the snake, with changeless slothful eye, Stir not, but sleep and smoulder where they lie. Who is most wretched, these caged ones, or we, Caught in a vastness beyond our sight to see?