“Cullen: Incident” Reimherr (1963) states that in Cullen‟s poetry “themes of love and religion hold a place of equal importance with the theme of race consciousness” (Reimherr 1963) and Johnson (2000) quotes Cullen himself as saying “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be a poet and not a negro poet” (Cullen, 1924, cited by Johnson, 2000). However, it is evident from Cullen‟s work that race consciousness, issues of identity and heritage, and the frustration of inequalities in contemporary American society were highly significant to him both personally and as an artist. In many of his poems, such as „The Dark Tower‟ and „The Shroud of Color‟, these themes are expressed in lengthy, complex verse which is rich in symbolism and metaphor. Incident, on the other hand, is short, stark and simply worded, and is perhaps even more effective and memorable than the longer works because of its sheer simplicity. The poem describes a young boy – “eight and very small” – who is on vacation in Baltimore. Riding through an area of “old”, and presumably traditional, Baltimore, in a state of innocent happiness and “glee”, he becomes aware that a boy of about his own age is staring at him. He smiles at the child, whose response is to poke out his tongue and call him „nigger‟. He goes on to say that despite seeing “the whole of Baltimore / From May until December”, this incident is the only thing that he can recall of the entire vacation. It is over in a matter of seconds, and yet those few seconds have made a greater and more lasting impression than the sights and