The Resume

(March 30, 1903-January 9, 1946)
Birth name was Countee LeRoy Porter
Published the poetry collections 'Color' (1925), 'Copper Sun' (1927), 'The Ballad of the Brown Girl' (1928), 'The Black Christ and Other Poems' (1929), 'Any Human to Another' (1934) and 'The Medea and Some Other Poems' (1935)
Wrote the children's books 'The Lost Zoo' (1940) and 'My Lives And How I Lost Them' (1942)
Taught English and French at Frederick Douglass Junior High School in New York City

Why he might be annoying:

He was secretive about his early life, so it is uncertain where he was born: at various times, he claimed Baltimore, Louisville and New York City as a birthplace.
His marriage to W.E.B. DuBois' daughter broke up in two years because of his homosexuality.
He feuded with Langston Hughes over his declaration that he wanted to be a 'poet, not [a] Negro poet.'
Ironically, despite that statement, his best-remembered poems are about race.

Why he might not be annoying:

He was abandoned by his parents at birth and raised by his grandmother; after her death, he was adopted by a minister.
He won a citywide poetry contest while in high school.
He was the most popular writer of the first phase of the Harlem Renaissance in the early 1920s.
At Frederick Douglass Junior High, he taught and inspired future novelist James Baldwin.

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• 20th Century Poets
• Allegedly Gay Men
• Allegedly Gay Men Who Married Women
• Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity
• Bow Tie Wearers
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 31]
• Children's Book Authors
• Guggenheim Fellowship Grant Recipients
• Harlem Renaissance
• I Attended Harvard
• I Attended NYU
• I Died in 1946 (Ranked: 42)
• I Got a Pet Cat or Twenty
• I Had Renal Failure
• I was Adopted or Orphaned
• I'm Buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx
• Look at Me, I'm Wearing a Bow Tie
• Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity
• Poets
• Profiles 29501-29750 (Ranked: 29704)

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 13 Votes: 46.15% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 14 Votes: 42.86% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 6 Votes: 16.67% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 13 Votes: 46.15% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 16 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
In 2013, Out of 66 Votes: 65.15% Annoying
In 2012, Out of 60 Votes: 73.33% Annoying
In 2011, Out of 178 Votes: 77.53% Annoying
In 2010, Out of 209 Votes: 69.86% Annoying