Claude McKay

Day 18 of #BlackHistoryMonth Black Theory:

Claude McKay

“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 accursèd 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 us 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!” 

If We Must Die

“There is joy in the woods just now,

       The leaves are whispers of song,

And the birds make mirth on the bough

       And music the whole day long,

And God! to dwell in the town

       In these springlike summer days,

On my brow an unfading frown

       And hate in my heart always—

A machine out of gear, aye, tired,

Yet forced to go on—for I’m hired.

Just forced to go on through fear,

       For every day I must eat

And find ugly clothes to wear,

       And bad shoes to hurt my feet

And a shelter for work-drugged sleep!

       A mere drudge! but what can one do?

A man that’s a man cannot weep!

       Suicide? A quitter? Oh, no!

But a slave should never grow tired,

Whom the masters have kindly hired.

But oh! for the woods, the flowers

       Of natural, sweet perfume,

The heartening, summer showers

       And the smiling shrubs in bloom,

Dust-free, dew-tinted at morn,

       The fresh and life-giving air,

The billowing waves of corn

       And the birds’ notes rich and clear:—

For a man-machine toil-tired

May crave beauty too—though he’s hired.”

Joy in the Woods

“Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root,

      Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,

And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,

      Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Set in the window, bringing memories

      Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,

And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies

      In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze;

      A wave of longing through my body swept,

And, hungry for the old, familiar ways,

      I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.”

The Tropics in New York

“Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,

And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,

Stealing my breath of life, I will confess

I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!

Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,

Giving me strength erect against her hate.

Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.

Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,

I stand within her walls with not a shred

Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.

Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,

And see her might and granite wonders there,

Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,

Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.”

America

“Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,

For weary centuries despised, oppressed,

Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place

In the great life line of the Christian West;

And in the Black Land disinherited,

Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,

My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead,

For this my race that has no home on earth.

Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry

To the avenging angel to consume

The white man's world of wonders utterly:

Let it be swallowed up in earth's vast womb,

Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke

To liberate my people from its yoke!”

Enslaved

“For the dim regions whence my fathers came

My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.

Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;

My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.

I would go back to darkness and to peace,

But the great western world holds me in fee,

And I may never hope for full release

While to its alien gods I bend my knee.

Something in me is lost, forever lost,

Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,

And I must walk the way of life a ghost

Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;

For I was born, far from my native clime,

Under the white man's menace, out of time.”

Outcast

Links:

Writings - 

https://www.poemhunter.com/claude-mckay/poems/

https://poets.org/poet/claude-mckay

https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/claudemckay/

Books - 

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/claude-mckay/214539/

Claude McKay Theory - 

https://socialistworker.co.uk/in-depth/claude-mckay-a-poet-activist-and-communist/

https://communist.red/claude-mckay-the-new-negro-movement-and-the-russian-revolution/

https://benedictinstitute.org/2021/02/claude-mccay/

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31788957549&dest=usa