Poet of Protest: Claude McKay 1889-1948

Commonwealth Magazine

One of the most celebrated poets of the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay was not originally from the United States. He was born in Sunny Ville, Jamaica. Known for his nostalgic poetic remembrances of his home in Jamaica, McKay's work evolved to include poetry that challenged the racism he encountered in the United States. Such poems as "If We Must Die" came as a direct outcry against the bloodshed from a series of race riots known as the Red Summer of 1919 (McBryde).

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, 

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot. 

If we must die, O let us nobly die, 

So that our precious blood may not be shed 

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor use though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, 

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Claude McKay at Poetryfoundation.org

It is important to note polyvocal character of McKay's work and his ability to merge two cultures in his poetry. As noted, McKay was proud of his Afro-Caribbean heritage; yet, he was first moved by the poetry of the Old Masters--Alexander Pope, Milton, and the "British masters." It was his English friend, Walter Jekyll, who encouraged the poet to recreate Jamaican Creole in his poetry, understanding the dimension that dialect could bring to a poem (2). 

For many years of his young adulthood, McKay supported himself and then his young family by taking menial jobs--though he continued to write poetry. He lived in Brown's Town, Jamaica, where he became a woodworker, and later went to Kingston. It was in Kingston that he encountered the brunt of white racism. Though Jamaica was primarily black, in Kingston, a white majority considered black people "capable of only menial tasks" (2). By 1912, he would publish the collections Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads. For Songs of Jamaica, the poet received an award from the Jamaican Institute of Arts and Sciences. His stipend allowed him to travel to the U.S. After a brief time at Tuskegee Institute and then Kansas State College, McKay worked odd jobs before settling in New York City (2). 

In New York, the poet would publish "Invocation" and "The Harlem Dancer," under a pseudonym in 1917. McKay's talent as a lyric poet earned him recognition, particularly from Frank Harris, editor of Pearson's magazine, and Max Eastman, editor of The Liberator, a socialist journal; both became instrumental in McKay's early career. It is in New York where McKay began to nurture a growing interest in Communism. 

While in England, McKay was employed by the British socialist journal, Workers' Drednought, and published a book of verse, Spring in New Hampshire, which was released in an expanded version in the United States in 1922. The same year, Harlem Shadows, perhaps his most significant poetry collection, appeared. McKay then began a twelve-year sojourn through Europe, the Soviet Union, and Africa, a period marked by poverty and illness. While in the Soviet Union he compiled his journalistic essays into a book, The Negroes in America, which was not published in the United States until 1979. 

For a time he was bouyed by the success of his first published novel, Home to Harlem (1928), which was critically acclaimed but engendered controversy for its frank portrayal of the underside of Harlem life" (Poets.org) It was Home to Harlem that received the most strident reviews from Dr. W.E.B. Dubois, who admitted "For the most part nauseates me, and after the dirtier parts of its filth I feel distinctly like taking a bath" According to Gates, McKay's response was to point out the defect in Dr. Dubois's concepts of Art as Propaganda and a "work of art" (qtd. in Gates, 1002). Despite Dubois's reviews, Home to Harlem presents a vision of Harlem that few wanted to report--a seedier, more troubled side that, though less palatable, true nonetheless. One of his celebrated poems, "Harlem Dancer," reveals the effects of female objectification, and the less nostalgic view of Harlem nightlife:

Applauding youths laughed with young

prostitutes

And watched her perfect, half-clothed body 

sway;

Her voice was like the sound of blended 

flutes

Blown by black players upon a picnic day.

She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,

The light gauze hanging loose about her

form; 

To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm

Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.

Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls

Luxuriant fell; and tossing coins in praise,

The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even

the girls,

Devoured her shape with eager, passionate gaze;

But looking at her falsely-smiling face,

I knew her self was not in that strange place. 

From The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1922

Reprinted by poets.org

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