The poets of the Harlem Renaissance had to overcome many obstacles to establish themselves in the world of American poetry. They faced blatant racism, harsh criticism and racial isolation. From these impediments came a multitude of great literary contributions. However, some of the best poetry comes from the critical self-analysis of four highly influential Harlem Renaissance poets. Hughes, McKay, Cullen, and Bennett had to deal with the issue of uncertain racial identity. Each pair had poems with identical titles: "Mulatto" for Hughes and McKay and "Heritage" for Cullen and Bennett. Analysis of each pair of poems and how their respective authors handle the subject material will reveal a distinctive pattern of racial confusion. For many poets of the Harlem Renaissance, establishing a definitive place of belonging was virtually impossible. Their poems portray individuals in conflict about where they belong and how they identify. While the differences between the poems are significant in themselves, the similar theme of racial identity is what connects all four poets in the larger context of being “Negro poets.” “Mulatto” is the strongest case of racial confusion between the two. titles that will be analyzed. A mulatto is someone classified as a person of mixed black and white ancestry, especially a person with one white and one black parent. It is precisely this type of person that Hughes and McKay speak of in their identically titled works. During the 1920s, when both of these men were writing poetry, mixed-race people were despised by both blacks and whites. They were oddities and were not accepted by either ancestral group. This fostered feelings of isolation in these individuals. In conflict, the... center of the paper......Fiction. New York: Athenaeum, 1969. Print. Bontemps, Arna. The Harlem Renaissance remembered; Wise men. New York:Dodd, Mead, 1972. Print.Emanuel, James A. and Theodore L. Gross. Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America. New York: Free, 1968. Print.Gibson, Donald B. Modern Black Poets; a collection of critical essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. Print. Maxwell, William J. and Joseph Valente. "Metrocolonial Capitals of Renaissance Modernism: Dublin's 'New Ireland' and Harlem's 'Mecca of the New Negro.' (2001): n. page Modern American poetry. Department of English, University of Illinois. Web.Nelson, Cary. "Claude McKay." Anthology of modern American poetry. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 314-19. Print.Parham, Marisa. "Hughes, Cullen and the Places of Loss." ELH. vol. 74. Np:Johns Hopkins UP, 2007. 429-47. Press.