Download “Any Human to Another” Countee Cullen Poem Summary The first

“Any Human to Another”
Countee Cullen
Poem Summary
 The first stanza expresses sorrow as an arrow piercing into the depth of the human body.
 The second stanza compares the grief of two as being combined and separate like a sea and
river.
 The third stanza states that no one should be so assured that they have a space that is all their
own separate from society in protected in happiness
 The forth stanza proclaims that joy be known to a few, but grief is only known to those with a
true heart.
 In the last stanza grief is compared to a blade struck and laid at the feet of a crown.
Form
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Five Stanzas
Rhyme Scheme – ABCCAB, AABCCB, ABABCCD, ABABB, ABCDCBD
Themes
 The body, violence, and nature and camping terms used to express the human condition and
emotion
Symbolic and Figurative Language
 There are many similes and metaphors
 Sorrow like an arrow through the bone
 People’s different is like the sea and river
 A man with a tent pitched in the meadow under the Sun’s Shadow is a place protected from
happiness.
 Sorrow cuts like a blade.
 Sorrow must be laid on your head like a crown.
Poet Information
 Countee Cullen was born in 1903 and raised in New York City first by his Grandmother and then
by Reverend and Mrs. Frederick Cullen. He attended a prestigious New York City prep school,
NYU, and then Harvard. By then, she was a leading poet in the Harlem Renaissance movement.
He was briefly married to Yolande Du Bois, daughter of W. E. B. Du Bois and spend a short time
studying in Paris. In the 1930’s he also wrote the novel , One Way to Heaven as well as short
stories for children before becoming a teacher in New York City into the 1940’s.
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Sarah Stoloff
“Any Human to Another”
Countee Cullen
Key Facts

Poem of the Harlem Renaissance
Source
 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/caroling-dusk-counteecullen/1018941142?ean=9780806513492
 http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-2691100011/any-human-another.html
 http://bumba.net/~hmaon/poetry.htm#any
 My own analysis
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Sarah Stoloff