Waring+Cuney

=Waring Cuney: A star among African-American poets=

By AJ Kinney
William Waring Cuney was born on 1906, in Washington, D.C. As he grew up, he abandoned this first name, going by only Waring Cuney. He decided to take up singing, soon after graduating from Howard University, and so attended the New England Conservatory of Music. He was never very successful, and so switched his time to writing. At the age of eighteen, he had already won a contest, the Oppurtunity contest, with his poem "No Images" (Poets). According to the Poetry Foundation, "'No Images' remains a significant representation of the basic philosophy of the Harlem Renaissance and has been widely anthologized and translated, and is Cuney’s most famous poem" (Poets).

While in Howard University, Waring met Langston Hughes, and they both became quite good friends. Along with a few other people, they became known as the Lincoln University poets, for the university that they later attended. Not too long afterward, he helped Langston Hughes and many other poets publish the failed periodical //Fire!!// For the only issue, he wrote a poem called //Death Bed//. Besides that particular magazine, he appeared in //Harlem Quarterly, Negro Quarterly, Crisis,// and //Black World//.

In 1941, he started work on a collaboration with Josh White. It was entitled //Southern Exposure//, and was a collection of songs based on the poems of Waring. A contemporary called it "the first full-fledged Civil Rights record album" (Waring), and it was one of the earliest recording of blues to be featured in the //New York Times// (Waring).

In 1963, Waring cut off contact to the world, living as a recluse. He did not emerge again until 1970, and only then to comment on a harsh reviewing of his work. Only a few years before his death, a new collection of his works was published, called //Storefront Church//. After a life filled with a love of poetry, he died on June 30, 1976 (Waring).

By William Waring Cuney 1906–1976
She does not know her beauty, she thinks her brown body has no glory.

If she could dance naked under palm trees and see her image in the river, she would know.

But there are no palm trees on the street, and dish water gives back no images.

Analysis
Waring was a big proponent of "black is beautiful," and this poem is one of the most famous examples of this idea. He speaks of a woman who is black, and beautiful because of it. She is blind, figuratively, to all of this, thinking herself worthless. He wishes that she could only see her beauty, but the white world has chained her to their ideals of beauty, which has no place for blacks. It says that there are "no palm trees on the street" (Cuney), showing that like many African-Americans, she is poor. "Dish water gives back no images," meaning that working as a servant as she probably does, she has been humiliated, and cannot appreciate her true beauty while looking into a bowl of dirtied water.

__Works Cited__
Cuney, Waring. "No Images." //Storefront Church.// N.p., n.d. Web. 14 April 2011. <[]>.

"Howard University Logo." //Howard U.// N.p., n.d. Web. 14 April 2011. <[]>.

"Poets and Poems: William Waring Cuney." //Poetry Foundation.// Poetry Foundation, n.p. Web. 14 April 2011. <[]>.

"Waring Cuney." //Answers//. Answers.com, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <[]>.