The poetry of Countee Cullen (1903-1946) – the most conservative poet of the Harlem Renaissance – constantly reveals a gap between a militant con cern for the « black cause » and a deliberate use of 19 th -century British poetic forms and language. Even if he is concerned with the fate of « his » people, Cullen refuses to be considered a « black » poet and chooses an idiom and formal frameworks far removed from those defended by the advocates of a nationalization of American culture at the same period. There is thus no claim to identity on his part and therefore no claim to an African-American form as such, even if his concerns are overwhelmingly racial. This paradox estranged him the majority of black readers.