Abstract “What is Africa to me?” asks Countee Cullen in his famous poem, “Heritage,” which first appeared in 1925 in the special issue of Survey Graphic : “ Harlem Mecca of the New Negro ”; the question haunts not only this magazine issue but also the anthology it inspired, Alain Locke’s The New Negro (1925), and it is a question which Black American authors have wrestled with ever since. Cullen’s poem has been widely studied, but not much work has been done on its placement in this special issue of Survey Graphic , especially considering the fact that it directly follows Alain Locke’s article, “The Art of the Ancestors.” Clearly, there is a dialogue going on between the authors featured in this magazine about African art, African American art, and the transnational relationship between the two. In this article, I do re-readings of “Heritage” both as it appeared in Color , Cullen’s first book of verse, and also as it appeared in this special issue of Survey Graphic. Ultimately, I argue that “Heritage” has to be understood as a collaborative poem, especially in its original incarnation, and it is a poem that in its various versions is also in argument with itself.
Whit Frazier Peterson (Thu,) studied this question.