After our discussion in class on Wednesday, the poem "Tableau" stood out to me. It was one of my favorite poems of Cullen's poetry. I think some of his poetry can be difficult to understand and hard to relate to, which as a reader takes away the meaning of the poem.
After learning that Cullen may have been gay, this poem stands out as a way to express those feelings without actually saying it. He uses a black and white boy to show the vivid contrast of the boys walking arm in arm. I think using this contrast it makes the boys stand out to the reader, but more significantly as a race issue rather than it being assumed they were gay. Cullen goes on to describe how the dark folks stare and the fair folks talk and how "wrong" this is to the viewers. I believe that he could be using the black and white boy as a way to express his feeling about a gay relationship, but people during this time were so against black and white relationships that the idea wasn't even a thought.
I think that if Cullen was expressing a relationship between two gay boys, he did an excellent job of conveying the message through a white and black boy. The attention that a white boy and black boy would get, is probably very similar to what two gay boys would recieve if the public was aware. He hides the true identity of the boys, by using their color as a center point to his poetry rather than truly identitfying that the boys are gay.
5 comments:
It seems after discussing many of Cullen’s poems in class that most of his writings have that level of ambiguity to them. He seems to write about many themes/ideas covertly. In Pagan Prayer Cullen talks about “my heart is pagan mad”. I believe he is saying Pagan, still a religious belief, just not Christianity, but not just clearly coming out and saying it. Then he says, “For me, I pay my debts in kind” which we talked about in class. Kind not meaning nice, but instead meaning to treat people as they treat you. If someone is mean then you should be mean back. Which then contradicts Christianity and turning the other cheek.
In this poem he brings out issues between religions and plays them off one another just as in your reference he plays race off of homosexuality.
You have brought up a good point with his Poem and the homosexuality issue. I wonder if this even would have been brought up hadnt our Professor told us what "experts" had derived from his poetry. I wonder if this guy Cullen ever came out before he died, or if it is all based on analysis of his poetry. The white and black boy holding arms definetly seem to be homosexual though. You raise a good point with the fact that the white and black people together---would raise a similar response than as to homosexuals walking down the street today would. If he wasnt gay i guess he would have used a black girl and white boy or white girl and black boy. right?
I really like the way you explained that. I think that putting race in truly did hide perhaps his true agenda.
I didnt think of this poem that way but know i can see how you could think of that since people did think he was gay. He could be talking about two gay men becuase that was looked at the same way like there were two boys black and white that had there arms together. That being gay was not permitted by society and neither was a black and white boy being friends. Cullen poems are hard to understand and could be looked at in many different ways.
“Tableau” reminds me Toomer’s story, “Becky.” They are similar in the fact that both relationships were between white and black individuals, which was not acceptable at the time. Furthermore the reaction of both the white and black communities in Cullen’s poem matches up to the reaction seen in “Becky.” The blacks stare while the whites gossip about the interracial friendship/relationship of these two men. Obviously Cullen did not come out as being a homosexual, but I think he shows his true colors though "Tableau."
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