Claude McKay

His work ranged from simple verse celebrating life in Jamaica to traditionally structured poems challenging white authority in America. He found that the proponents of racism were both loathsome and pitiful. While his poetic themes place him squarely in the Harlem Renaissance, McKay traveled extensively and eventually found himself in Communist Russia supporting their movement and living in Paris working as an artist’s model. Some of his most famous works (verse and prose) portray the “ghetto life” of Harlem including sordid things like prostitution. This was not always positively met by other black writers.

“If We Must Die” pg. 890 What is the effect of the simile in the first line? Who are the “accursed lot”? Why are they strongly disliked (accursed means to have a curse placed on you or to be strongly disliked (as if you were cursed)?  How would they have died in “vain”? How does the speaker characterize his assailants? How does the speaker take the simile in the first line and change it by the end of the poem? Who is the speaker? What is the tone of the poem?

Subway Wind Far down, down through the city’s great gaunt gut The gray train rushing bears the weary wind; In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut, Leaving the sick and heavy air behind. And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door To give their summer jackets to the breeze; Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas; Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep, Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift Lightly among the islands of the deep; Islands of lofy palm trees blooming white That led their perfume to the tropic sea, Where fields lie idle in the dew-drenched night, And the Trades float above them fresh and free.

What has McKay compared the subway to? Far down, down through the city’s great gaunt gut The gray train rushing bears the weary wind; In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut, Leaving the sick and heavy air behind. And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door To give their summer jackets to the breeze; Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas; Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep, Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift Lightly among the islands of the deep; Islands of lofy palm trees blooming white That led their perfume to the tropic sea, Where fields lie idle in the dew-drenched night, And the Trades float above them fresh and free. What has McKay compared the subway to? Which seems to be better? Why? What might one be able to infer about McKay’s feelings based on this poem? What is his tone? How can you support that?