The Eclectic Reader

Finally, my display for Black History Month is set up. I’ve sold one thing so far, a DVD/book set on Martin Luther King. I am working on lists of movies and books I have seen and read that I think worthwhile. I will post those next and welcome suggestions.

Here is a poem by Countee Cullen, a leading African-American Harlem Renaissance writer and poet. It was in a children’s poetry anthology. To be honest, I have never seen his work before in all my nearly 40 years as a bookdealer.

Incident

Once riding in Old Baltimore,

Heart filled, head filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

Staring straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger

And so I smiled, but he

Stuck out his tongue and called me nigger.

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until November.

Of all the things that happened there—

That’s all that I remember.

Countee Cullen

http://www.blackhistory.net/Countee_Cullen.htm

The Eclectic Reader is best reached via email: eclecticreaderbooks@gmail.com

Or by phone: 970-223-4019