The Poetry of Countee Cullen: "A Brown Girl Dead" and "Death to the Poor"

As Harper and Walton assert in The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, Countee Cullen's poems are often considered to be "a fluid coalescence of black life and English forms" (Harper 153). While many of Cullen's poems are rife with racial overtones, as we will see in examining the title, mechanics and diction, of "A Brown Girl Dead," Cullen also sought to produce works which addressed themes such as death with little or no specific reference to "black life," as his poem "Death to the Poor," illustrates.

In the first stanza of "A Brown Girl Dead," alliteration and capitalization are used to emphasize the importance of certain words, ultimately allowing for a racial reading of the poem. The words "with" and "white" are stressed in the first line through alliteration, and "white" even more so by its repetition in the second line. Such emphasis creates a striking contrast with the word "brown" in the poem's title. Combined with "dark" (l. 3), stressed due to its capitalization, 'brown' is interpreted by the reader as referring to the color brown. Its use as an adjective to describe "girl" in the poem's title implies that the girl about whom Cullen writes is non-white, or "Black." Also important in the first stanza is Cullen's use of capitalization: "Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;/Lord Death has found her sweet" (l. 3-4). Capitalization of "Lord Death," interpreted here as referring to the way in which many cultures have historically personified death, parallels the capitalization of "Dark Madonna," in the previous line, implying that "dark" is not capitalized simply because it is the first word in the line, but because it is important; thus "dark" becomes an important adjunct to "brown," emphasizing its reference to skin color.