"Incident" by Countee Cullen

Controversy is Lyric Life. This particular piece speaks of just that. The persona of the speaker of the poem is one of disbelief and scorn. "Now I was eight and very small, and he was no whit bigger, and so I smiled, but he poked out his tongue, and called me, "Nigger." The level of elatededness of the speaker went from positive to negative in an instant. One word provides the whole message of the poem; the wisdom of the poem lies within the experience of the individual, the speaker. The creation of that very word was as a result of an incident.