Selected Poems of Claude McKay

Claude McKay, known for his novels Home to Harlem, Banjo and Banana Bottom as well as for his poetry, was one of the principal forces in the Negro literary renaissance of the 1920’s. This selection of his poetry, made largely by McKay himself shortly before his death in 1948 and published posthumously, contains all of the poems from his earlier volume Harlem Shadows, together with a number written during his expatriate years in Europe. They range from haunting poems about his native Jamaica and love lyrics to stirring poems of protest and defiance. His powerful sonnet “If We Must Die” is one of the most widely known poems of our generation. Written during the race riots of 1919, its militant lines found new meaning during World War II when Winston Churchill read them to the House of Commons.