Incident:

Once riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.


Analysis:

Incident" by Countee Cullen was written in the 1920’s at a time when people of color were greatly discriminated against. Many public places like schools and restaurants were segregated. Through the experience of an eight year old boy Cullen illustrates some of the things black people encountered during that time period. This poem has three quatrains and is written in an ABCD rhyme scheme. This poem describes an encounter between a black child and a white child. The black child gives a friendly smile, but the white child responds with a rude gesture and calls him a racist name. In that moment, he discovers how deeply racial hatred is ingrained in American society. Years later, looking back at that time in his life, the only thing the black man could remember was that time in Baltimore. The theme is that people are cruel to each other, a long with the hatred and prejudice people have towards each other.