Countee Cullen

Yet Do I Marvel

I think that Cullen is playing with the concept of justice and what is right and wrong. He is playing with the power of God by saying, I doubt not God is good, well meaning, kind,etc BUT he made me black and a poet AND I'm getting my work out there.

He is bringing up examples of these "Gods" that did wrong and had to suffer for it. I think that this is significant because it makes me think that Cullen thinks God should suffer because he made him black. I am not sure if that has anything to do with it. Cullen may not even be referencing to the color of his skin, but I think it has something to do with the significance of this poem. 

His references threw me off and half the words I had to look up, but after googling them it started to make sense. He is quite different then Eliot, but both authors portray meaning to society, uprising us to really question what is going on.

ALSO- I'd like to point out that in the second poem, Heritage, he says that he has no ties with "Gods and Goddesses" or people who worship the devil, yet he sure does talk about these other Gods in his works. Just saying.... (haha)

Heritage

Because this poem was a little longer, it got really confusing. I want to say that he was talking about his past in Africa, but I feel like duh that is exactly what he is saying. In each stanza we find a different piece of information about him. In the first line he talks about the sun and the people and the colors of everything. In the second stanza he talks about the animals and the drums that he doesn't want to hear, and it goes on. I think it is a pretty poem and a nice ode to what he believes is his heritage, but towards the end he changed his adjectives to darker sounding words, for example, dark, mortal grief, quick and hot and anger, etc.

I have a few questions, what is the significance to the last stanza in italicizes?  Also, the first two stanzas end with a few lines in italicizes. What is this significance?