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From the Stacks: “Your spirit speaking to mine…” – The Poetic Conversation of Helen Keller and Count
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An earlier post on Amistad’s blog referenced a current project to reconstruct the personal library of Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, which is housed at the Center. The project aims to update our catalog records for copies of books owned by Cullen, noting ownership signatures, inscriptions, annotations by Cullen, and other unique bibliographic elements. One particularly interesting book updated as part of this project is a presentation copy of Helen Keller’s 1908 collection of essays The World I Live In.
The front fly-leaf of Cullen’s copy reads in Keller’s blocky, yet beautiful, script:
to Countee Cullen
with warm regards
Helen Keller
April 1928
“the Lord has risen,
Lilies say, in burst
Of snowy blooms”
In addition to this inscribed copy, the Countee Cullen Papers at Amistad contain Keller’s letter that accompanied the gift, which provides some context to an ongoing poetic conversation between Keller and Cullen. The letter, dated 6 April 1928, mentions a visit by Cullen to Keller’s home in Forest Hills on Long Island and her receipt of Cullen’s first book, Color. Indeed, Keller’s own personal library, now housed as part of the Helen Keller Archives at the American Federation for the Blind, contains an inscribed copy of Color, dated 24 March 1928.
Writing to Cullen to thank him for his gift, Keller returned the favor with her own inscribed copy. Not only did Keller add a poetic dash by paraphrasing Margaret Deland’s poem “The Message of the Lilies” in her inscription, but her letter to Cullen includes an insightful commentary on his poetry and the question of race within his work. She singles out Cullen’s poem “To You Who Read My Book” by quoting multiple lines, and comments on Color overall, saying “I find the poems intensely race-conscious; but I cannot agree with the criticism I read sometime ago, I think in the ‘Nation,’ that this is a fault. A man must write out of his deepest experience, or there will be no individual tang to what he writes.” Keller continues her commentary by stating that while the perspective of a young poet may at times be considered “shrill” or “crudely elaborated” – “until time has lessened the pain of bitter memories, it is absurd to counsel an objective approach to racial antagonism.”
As a young blind and deaf woman who faced her own adversities and societal judgements, Keller seemed to exhibit an understanding of Cullen’s expressions of what it felt like to be from a marginalized community in early 20th century America. Perhaps it was Keller’s perceptive reading of Cullen’s poems or Cullen’s own reading of the long poem “A Chant of Darkness” that closes The World I Live In, but he did not end the poetic conversation between the two individuals with the exchange of books in 1928. The following year, Cullen published his third collection of poetry, The Black Christ and Other Poems, which contained the following:
For Helen Keller
Against our puny sound and sight
In vain the bells of Heaven ring,
The Mystic Blossoms red and white
May not intrigue our visioning.
For lest we handle, lest we touch,
Lest carnally our minds condone,
Our clumsy credence may not clutch
The under or the overtone.
Her finer alchemy converts
The clanging brass to golden-pealed,
And for her sight the black earth spurts
Hues never thought there unrevealed.
In letters, inscribed books, and individual poems, Helen Keller and Countee Cullen seemed to have shared a mutual admiration. One that is documented in their remaining archives at the Amistad Research Center and the American Federation for the Blind.
*A special thank you to Helen Selsdon, Archivist for the American Federation of the Blind and the Helen Keller Archives for permission to quote from Keller’s letter to Countee Cullen. Copyright © American Foundation for the Blind, Helen Keller Archive.
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Kathe Hambrick is the Founder and former Executive Director of the River Road African American Museum (RRAAM), established in 1994 as Louisiana’s first African American Museum. She is a past President of the national Association of African American Museums (AAAM). She served as the Chief Curator and Director of Interpretation for the West Baton Rouge Museum for four years. Hambrick was born in New Orleans and spent half her life in California where she received an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in African American Studies from California State University Long Beach.
Hambrick is a Public Historian with a passion for collecting, preserving and interpreting history for diverse audiences. Her thirty-one-year career as a museum professional includes expertise in program development, interpretative planning, curation, grant writing, fundraising, and board governance. She led the effort to preserve three slave cemeteries and six historic buildings in Ascension Parish.
She is considered an expert on the history and culture of African Americans in communities along the Mississippi River. Kathe Hambrick’s interviews include local, national, and international media, the BBC Learning Channel, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio, and the New York Times. The consulting firm, 2PRESERVE was established by Hambrick in 2021 to provide cultural resources and guidance to corporations, museums, cultural centers, government agencies, and faith-based organizations.
Throughout her 31-year career, Kathe has curated over one hundred exhibits, including The Rural Roots of Jazz, African Influences on Louisiana Cuisine, Creole Du Monde, and The Square Collection which featured original art by Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barthé, and Tina Allen. Her most recent exhibit is the GU272 of Ascension: The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.
Kathe is the author and co-author of several books:
Kathe Hambrick is the Founder and former Executive Director of the River Road African American Museum (RRAAM), established in 1994 as Louisiana’s first African American Museum. She is a past President of the national Association of African American Museums (AAAM). She served as the Chief Curator and Director of Interpretation for the West Baton Rouge Museum for four years. Hambrick was born in New Orleans and spent half her life in California where she received an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in African American Studies from California State University Long Beach.
Hambrick is a Public Historian with a passion for collecting, preserving and interpreting history for diverse audiences. Her thirty-one-year career as a museum professional includes expertise in program development, interpretative planning, curation, grant writing, fundraising, and board governance. She led the effort to preserve three slave cemeteries and six historic buildings in Ascension Parish.
She is considered an expert on the history and culture of African Americans in communities along the Mississippi River. Kathe Hambrick’s interviews include local, national, and international media, the BBC Learning Channel, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio, and the New York Times. The consulting firm, 2PRESERVE was established by Hambrick in 2021 to provide cultural resources and guidance to corporations, museums, cultural centers, government agencies, and faith-based organizations.
Throughout her 31-year career, Kathe has curated over one hundred exhibits, including The Rural Roots of Jazz, African Influences on Louisiana Cuisine, Creole Du Monde, and The Square Collection which featured original art by Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barthé, and Tina Allen. Her most recent exhibit is the GU272 of Ascension: The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.
Kathe is the author and co-author of several books:
Kathe Hambrick is the Founder and former Executive Director of the River Road African American Museum (RRAAM), established in 1994 as Louisiana’s first African American Museum. She is a past President of the national Association of African American Museums (AAAM). She served as the Chief Curator and Director of Interpretation for the West Baton Rouge Museum for four years. Hambrick was born in New Orleans and spent half her life in California where she received an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in African American Studies from California State University Long Beach.
Hambrick is a Public Historian with a passion for collecting, preserving and interpreting history for diverse audiences. Her thirty-one-year career as a museum professional includes expertise in program development, interpretative planning, curation, grant writing, fundraising, and board governance. She led the effort to preserve three slave cemeteries and six historic buildings in Ascension Parish.
She is considered an expert on the history and culture of African Americans in communities along the Mississippi River. Kathe Hambrick’s interviews include local, national, and international media, the BBC Learning Channel, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio, and the New York Times. The consulting firm, 2PRESERVE was established by Hambrick in 2021 to provide cultural resources and guidance to corporations, museums, cultural centers, government agencies, and faith-based organizations.
Throughout her 31-year career, Kathe has curated over one hundred exhibits, including The Rural Roots of Jazz, African Influences on Louisiana Cuisine, Creole Du Monde, and The Square Collection which featured original art by Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barthé, and Tina Allen. Her most recent exhibit is the GU272 of Ascension: The Jesuit and Episcopal Connection to Slavery.
Kathe is the author and co-author of several books: