Cullen’s sonnet marvels at a God who so often makes people suffer. He links his modern struggle as a black poet in the early 20th century with the struggles of some of the most unfortunate characters in Greek classical myths.
Biographer Charles Molesworth borrowed the final phrase for the title of his biography of Cullen. Literary critic J. Saunder Redding titled his study of African American literature To Make a Poet Black (1939) drawing on the first part of Cullen’s closing line.
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