Paying Tribute to Jamaica, African Americans, and Trials
Claude McKay’s collection of poetry, Harlem Shadows, was written and published in 1922. McKay found inspiration from his childhood in Jamaica, his experience of racism in the United States, and his years of travel and processing. McKay, along with other African Americans and Harlem Renaissance writers, lived during a turbulent time in America and used poetry to respond to longing, conflict, and love. In Harlem Shadows, McKay creates a collection of simple and memorable poems to connect heritage, racism, and love, and provide a model for others to process memories, injustice, and loss.
Francis Claude McKay was born in 1890 in Sunny Hills, Jamaica. He was the son of two farmers and the youngest of eleven children. From an early age, he learned the importance of an education. He attended a school run by his older brother when he was young. When his brother introduced him to volumes of poetry and short stories, McKay was inspired to write poems and stories of his own (Poets.org). After completing elementary and secondary education, McKay looked to further his education under a mentor. When he was a young adult, he immigrated to the United States with hopes of pursuing higher education. While he entered a new phase in his life, his years in Jamaica would play an important role in his early poetry (Giles 1).
When McKay first came to America, he attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama from 1912 to 1914 and Kansas State College in 1914 to study literature and poetry and soon began publishing poetry. Two of his early collections of poetry, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, reflected his love for his homeland Jamaica. During his early years, he wrote dialect poetry to retain his heritage and share the distinct Jamaican culture with his readers. His style changed as he grew older and spent more time in the states as well as abroad, but the importance of homeland and heritage is apparent in his later collection, Harlem Shadows (Giles 1).
McKay was passionate about his heritage and identity, particularly as an African American. After immigrating to the United States, McKay published several poems regarding race and diversity. Poems like “The White House,” “The Lynching,” and “If We Must Die,” reflect a desire for respect and justice (Poets.org). In his quest for a distinct African American identity, McKay joined forces with several other prominent African American poets in the 1920s such as James Weldon Johnson and Charles W. Chesnutt to found a new literature movement. The Harlem Renaissance was established to distinguish African American culture and literature from that of white Americans. Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston soon joined McKay, Johnson, and Chesnutt. Harlem Renaissance writers hoped to encourage African Americans to embrace their distinct culture and identity. They called for a new age of blacks in America, those who were strong, perseverant, and determined to create a new image for themselves (Giles 1).
Through their writing, Harlem Renaissance writers hoped to encourage blacks in America to embrace their heritages and identity and to stand strong through the abuse they suffered because of their color (McElrath 1). The early 1900s represented a time of turbulence, in the United States as well as in other countries. The Harlem Renaissance developed between two World Wars, before the Great Depression and Civil Rights Movement, and during social rebellions such as the Red Scare of 1919, when violence would openly break out the American streets in the name of social justice. Harlem Renaissance writers like Claude McKay used art and poetry to search for an appropriate response to conflict rising around them.
The Harlem Renaissance was a brief literature movement. It ended in the 1930s when the Great Depression forced many artists to pursue more predictable forms of income. While the movement was brief, it was powerful. Harlem Renaissance writers delivered hope to African Americans and provided a way of processing grief, oppression, and identity. The movement also instilled hope that would last through the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Harlem Renaissance writers give readers today glimpses of black segregation and persecution as well as the intense pride and loyalty in African American history (McElrath 1).
After the movement, McKay continued to write and travel on his own. In 1930, McKay began a series of travels during which he gained inspiration for more literary works. The period began with a move to Morocco, then on to Russia, France, Spain, and a brief time in England. With exposure to other cultures and ideas, McKay became actively engaged in socialism and interested in Communism. Both of these concepts proved to capture McKay with their focus on people and a people’s government. McKay appreciated and admired the countries that promoted these philosophies and procedures for their courage to promote equality and independence (Britannica). When he returned from Europe, McKay developed heart problems, forcing him to permanently reside in the United States and adopt a slower lifestyle. He wrote a few pieces including his autobiography, A Long Way From Home, in 1937. In 1944, while living in Chicago, McKay suffered from congestive heart failure and passed away, leaving a difficult position to fill. McKay died a loved and respected artists and socialist. His collections, particularly Harlem Shadows, would remain dear to his readers’ hearts as well as influence Americans during the Civil Rights Movement (Giles 1).
While McKay wrote a variety of poems, novels, and shorts stories in his life, this paper will focus on his collection of poems entitled Harlem Shadows. This collection was written and published in the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, in 1922, and falls in the middle of seven volumes of poetry that McKay compiled and published. The poems in Harlem Shadows directly espouse the primary focuses of the movement. They describe McKay’s home in Jamaica, his family, his initial years in the United States, and the racism and prejudice he was subjected to as an African American. There are three prominent themes in the collection: remembering one’s homeland, empowering African Americans, and revering love and loss. The collection is divided into three sections with poems discussing these themes as well as searching for appropriate responses to conflict.
In his author’s note, Claude McKay discusses the lack of intentional rhyme or conventional poetic devices. There is no specific poet who he tries to imitate. McKay opens the note with this quote, “In putting ideas and feelings into poetry, I have tried in each case to use the medium most adaptable to the specific purpose. I own allegiance to no master. I have never found it possible to accept in entirety any one poet. But I have loved and joyed in what I consider the finest in the poets of all ages.” While he helped establish the Harlem Renaissance, he did so hoping to free other writers like himself to write as they chose. Instead of a specific style, the Renaissance had a common purpose that united its writers and McKay found freedom in the flexibility (McKay xix).
In the first section of Harlem Shadows, McKay uses poetry to share images and memories from his homeland. These poems describe the culture, families, and agriculture of Jamaica—the foundation of McKay’s identity. An example of one of these poems is “The Tropics in New York.” This poem is comprised of three concise stanzas, each with 4 lines. He follows a strict rhyming pattern following ABAB CDCD etc. In this poem, McKay reminisces about his years in Jamaica while living in New York. He uses images of native fruits to share a bit of his heritage, “bananas ripe and green, and ginger roots/cocoa in pods and alligator pears.” Reflections on pleasant memories from home are evident in the second stanza, “My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;/A wave of longing through my body swept,/And, hungry for the old, familiar ways…” McKay expresses his loss of family and home while drawing on the abundance of memories and family in Jamaica. “The Tropics in New York” reveals McKay’s love for his homeland and desire to return to it but it also encourages other African Americans to positive memories as inspiration for pushing through difficult times.
The next section in Harlem Shadows contains poems searching for a response to injustice, racism, and conflict. The poems in this middle section of the book tell the woes of oppressed slaves, stories behind lynching, and prejudices against blacks in America. “If We Must Die” is one poem in particular that inspires African Americans to push through the years of racism and to hope for better days ahead. This poem is a sonnet with twelve lines and a couplet grouped into one stanza. There is not a specific rhyme scheme in this poem, but McKay’s repeated phrase, “If we must die…” provides unity. The main poetic device used in this poem is personification. McKay likens blacks to hogs and whites to dogs and feels that the dogs are picking on the hogs and laughing at them, “… round us [the pigs—blacks] bark the mad and hungry dogs, making their mock at our accursed lot.” Likening the oppression of African Americans to barn animals illustrates how they felt like dirt, inferior to whites. McKay ends the poem with a call to action, to stand confident and strong for respect and equality.
In the poem “Memorial,” which is close to the end of Harlem Shadows, McKay reflects on the third theme of love and loss. While there are not many poems in McKay’s collection that are longer than two pages, “Memorial” is one of the longest. In this Harlem Renaissance poem, McKay reflects on McKay uses structure, rhyme, unusual comparisons, and a song-like rhythm to acknowledge the power of love. Within “Memorial,” there are two metaphors. One is in the third stanza, line two, “…my passion was a mighty wave.” There is a simile in the fifth stanza, line two, “…peace that filled my soul like cooling wine.” The comparison to wine further suggests romance. The poem serves as a memorial to a source of McKay’s affection that either died or left him. He processes his sorrow and love by writing this poem and remembering why he loved this significant individual in his life.
Even though McKay does not limit himself to a specific style and format for his poems, he still holds a fairly predictable pattern in this poem. Most of his poems have regular end rhyme and common comparisons such as metaphors and similes. McKay uses unusual comparisons to liken complex ideas to comprehensible ideas and images to help his readers understand his purpose. Several of his poems include personification, particularly in those addressing racism inhumane treatment of African Americans. McKay claims that any patterns that exist within his writing are there because they fulfill his intended purpose and sound.
These three poems are examples of McKay’s work from Harlem Shadows. These poems illustrate the three sections in the collection that are closely connected to three important phases in Claude McKay’s life. As noted, the Harlem Renaissance greatly affected McKay’s writing, but this collection also reveals how McKay was affected by many different experiences and people in his life. Harlem Shadows, in turn, had a powerful effect on its readers. Soon after publication, it was marked as “…the most compelling expression of the New Negro cultural renaissance…” (Lowney 1). With this collection and the phases represented in it, McKay encourages others to process their memories and emotions.
Works Cited
"Claude McKay." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009. Web. 06
Feb. 2011.
Chambers, Veronica. The Harlem Renaissance. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers,
1998. Print.
Giles, Freda Scott. Claude McKay’s Life. 21 March 2001. Web. 06 February 2011. <http://www.
english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm>.
Lowney, John. After All These Decades, The Complete Poems of Claude McKay. Web. 06 March
2011. <http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~ganterg/sjureview/vol2-2/11Lowney-McKay.htm>.
McElrath, Jessica. Harlem Renaissance. Web. 06 February 2011. <http://www.afroamhistory.
about.com/cs/harlemrenaissance/a/harlemren.htm>.
Unknown author. Claude McKay. Web. 06 February 2011. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/
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Unknown author. Claude McKay: A Bibliography. 2004. Web. 06 February 2011. <http://www.
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Bibliography of McKay’s Poetry Collections
McKay, Claude. Songs of Jamaica. Publisher unknown. 1911.
McKay, Claude. Constab Ballads. Publisher unknown. 1912.
McKay, Claude. Spring in New Hampshire and Other Poems. Publisher unknown. 1920.
McKay, Claude. Harlem Shadows. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1922.
McKay, Claude. Selected Poems of Claude McKay. Chicago: Bookman Associates. 1953.
McKay, Claude. The Dialect Poetry of Claude McKay. Books for Libraries Press. 1972.
McKay, Claude. Complete Poems. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. 2004.
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