Incident

Incident The poem “Incident,” by Countee Cullen, is one that could be described as a piece of Lyric Poetry. This is because it is a short poem that focuses in on the emotion of the poem, not the speaker or the event as much. Cullen shows how the happy feelings at the beginning of the poem change drastically to the hateful feelings at the end of the poem. After reading this poem, I found it very enjoyable, and containing a well-known theme. The poem begins with, “Once riding in old Baltimore, / Heart-filled, / head-filled with glee/” It begins to describe someone who is riding into Baltimore for a trip of some sort, happy about his/or her arrival into town. Not long after that incident he/or she sees a boy starring straight at them as they are coming into town. “Now I was eight/and very small, / and he was no whit bigger/,” this section of the poem shows that the person riding into Baltimore is a child and realizes that the child starring back at him is young as well and feels relaxed knowing that they are alike. The tone changes at this point though…the poem, incident, baltimore, young, read, cullen, riding, racism, one, boy, town, starring, issue, found, enjoyable, child, character, being, about, well-known, very, understand, trip, tongue, tone, time, theme, symbol, shows, sees, reading, person, out, old, nigger, next, main, life, happy, give, feelings, experience, excellent, easy, change, begins, baltimorean, back, another