Poetry Slam!: "Yet Do I Marvel" by Countee Cullen

Written during the Harlem Renaissance, Cullen's poem is a powerful meditation on the challenges of writing as an African-American poet. Read the poem here.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. stoop
    debase oneself morally
    I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
    And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
    The little buried mole continues blind
  2. quibble
    argue over petty things
    I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
    And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
    The little buried mole continues blind
  3. Tantalus
    a wicked king and son of Zeus
    Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
    Is baited by the fickle fruit
    In Greek mythology, Tantalus was condemned to punishment in the underworld: although hungry and thirsty, he could never reach the fruit that dangled above his head nor drink the water in the pool at his feet.
  4. bait
    lure, entice, or entrap
    Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
    Is baited by the fickle fruit
  5. fickle
    liable to sudden unpredictable change
    Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
    Is baited by the fickle fruit
  6. brute
    resembling a beast
    If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
    To struggle up a never-ending stair.
  7. caprice
    a sudden desire
    If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
    To struggle up a never-ending stair.
  8. Sisyphus
    (Greek legend) a king in ancient Greece who offended Zeus and whose punishment was to roll a huge boulder to the top of a steep hill; each time the boulder neared the top it rolled back down and Sisyphus was forced to start again
    If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
    To struggle up a never-ending stair.
  9. inscrutable
    difficult or impossible to understand
    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.
  10. immune
    not affected by a given influence
    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.
  11. catechism
    a set of formal questions about basic principles
    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.
  12. strew
    spread by scattering
    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.
  13. petty
    small and of little importance
    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.
  14. compel
    force somebody to do something
    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.
  15. awful
    inspiring awe or admiration or wonder
    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.
  16. marvel
    be amazed at
    Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
    To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
  17. curious
    beyond or deviating from the usual or expected
    Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
    To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
  18. bid
    make a demand, as for a card or a suit or a show of hands
    Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
    To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
Created on Thu Jun 06 23:05:07 EDT 2013 (updated Mon Apr 02 16:09:01 EDT 2018)

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