Who is Claude Mckay

Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay OJ (September 15, 1890 – May 22, 1948) was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance.

Born in Jamaica, McKay first traveled to the United States to attend college, and encountered W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk which stimulated McKay's interest in political involvement. He moved to New York City in 1914 and in 1919 he wrote "If We Must Die", one of his best known works, a widely reprinted sonnet responding to the wave of white-on-black race riots and lynchings following the conclusion of the First World War.

A poet from the first, he also wrote five novels and a novella: Home to Harlem (1928), a best-seller that won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature; Banjo (1929); Banana Bottom (1...
Read Full Biography of Claude Mckay


Claude Mckay Poems

  • My Mother
    I

    Reg wished me to go with him to the field,
    I paused because I did not want to go; ...
  • When Dawn Comes To The City
    The tired cars go grumbling by,
    The moaning, groaning cars,
    And the old milk carts go rumbling by
    Under the same dull stars. ...
  • French Leave
    No servile little fear shall daunt my will
    This morning. I have courage steeled to say
    I will be lazy, conqueringly still,
    I will not lose the hours in toil this day. ...
  • Alfonso, Dressing To Wait At Table
    Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad
    Of subtly-changing and surprising parts;
    His moods are storms that frighten and make glad,
    His eyes were made to capture women's hearts. ...
  • The Wild Goat
    O you would clothe me in silken frocks
    And house me from the cold,
    And bind with bright bands my glossy locks,
    And buy me chains of gold; ...
Read All Poems


Top 10 most used topics by Claude Mckay

Heart 32 Night 29 Love 25 I Love You 25 Sweet 22 Passion 20 Life 20 Body 16 Long 16 Light 16


Claude Mckay Quotes

Read All Quotes


Comments about Claude Mckay

Deannamascle: spring in new hampshire by claude mckay - poems | academy of american poets
Pinko_fag: gonna be adding marsha and sylvia, grace hutchins and anna rochester, betty millard, claude mckay, edward carpenter, and harry whyte. i don’t wanna add anyone living though, i feel weird about putting them next to dead people.
Nonchalantly_: poems, particularly "when april comes", are verdant and crushing. claude mckay, in his "if we must die" sounds much closer to robert weldon johnson--very much so preacherly. staid, staunch, without lyric; does not conjure images, but marshals them
Poetsorg: and we will build a cottage there beside an open glade, with black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near, and ferns that never fade. —claude mckay
Gallexie5060: 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, poem hunter › claude-mckay claude mckay - poet claude mckay poems
Read All Comments


Write your comment about Claude Mckay


Poem of the day

Isaac Watts Poem
Psalm 119 Part 10
 by Isaac Watts

Pleading the promises.

ver. 38,49

Behold thy waiting servant, Lord,
Devoted to thy fear;
Remember and confirm thy word,
For all my hopes are there.
...

Read complete poem

Popular Poets