Editing Countee Cullen (section)

===New York University, Harvard University and early publications===
{{Quote box |width=300px |align=right|quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
 |quote  =<poem>
'''"Yet Do I Marvel"'''

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, 
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why 
The little buried mole continues blind, 
Why flesh that mirrors Him must someday die, 
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus 
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare 
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus 
To struggle up a never-ending stair. 
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune 
To catechism by a mind too strewn 
With petty cares to slightly understand 
What awful brain compels His awful hand. 
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: 
To make a poet black, and bid him sing! 
</poem>

 |source = "Yet Do I Marvel" (1925)<ref>Cullen, [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171320 "Yet Do I Marvel"], Poetry Foundation.</ref>
}}

After graduating from high school, he attended [[New York University]] (NYU).<ref>Perry: 5 cf. Shucard: 7.</ref> In 1923, at the [[The Town Hall (New York City)|Town Hall]] in New York City, he gave a speech to the League of Youth in which he said, “For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.” The speech was later printed in ''[[The Crisis]]'' (August 1923).<ref name=":10" /> Also in 1923, Cullen won second prize in the [[Witter Bynner]] National Competitions for Undergraduate Poetry, sponsored by the Poetry Society of America, for his book of poems titled, "The Ballad of the Brown Girl".<ref>Perry: 6.</ref> Soon after, he was publishing poetry in national periodicals such as [[Harper's Magazine|''Harper's'']], ''The Crisis'', [[Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life|''Opportunity'']], [[The Bookman (New York)|''The Bookman'']], and [[Poetry (magazine)|''Poetry'']], earning him a national reputation.<!--Perry: 7--> The ensuing year, he again placed second in the contest, finally winning first prize in 1925.<!--Perry: 7--> He competed in a poetry contest sponsored by ''Opportunity''<!--Perry: 7--> and came in second with "To One Who Say Me Nay", losing to [[Langston Hughes]]'s "[[The Weary Blues]]". Cullen graduated from NYU in 1925 and was one of eleven students selected to [[Phi Beta Kappa]].

That same year, Cullen entered [[Harvard]] to pursue a [[Master's degree|master's]] in English, and published ''Color'', his first collection of poems that later became a landmark of the [[Harlem Renaissance]].<ref name="Perry: 7">Perry: 7.</ref> Written in a careful, traditional style, the work celebrated black beauty and deplored the effects of racism. The volume included "Heritage" and "[[Incident (poem)|Incident]]", probably his most famous poems. "Yet Do I Marvel", about racial identity and injustice, showed the literary influence of [[William Wordsworth]] and [[William Blake]], but its subject was far from the world of their Romantic sonnets. The poet accepts that there is God, and "God is good, well-meaning, kind", but he finds a contradiction in his own plight in a racist society: he is black and a poet.<ref name="shucard"/> In 1926, Cullen graduated with a master's degree<ref name="shucard">Shucard: 7.</ref> while also serving as the guest editor of a special "Negro Poets" issue of the poetry magazine, ''Palms''. The appointment led to ''Harper's'' inviting him to edit an anthology of Black poetry in 1927.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Potter |first1=Vilma |title=Idella Purnell's PALMS and Godfather Witter Bynner |journal=American Periodicals |date=1994 |volume=4 |pages=55–56 |jstor=20771064 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20771064 |access-date= March 30, 2022}}</ref>