Claude McKay

Claude McKay, born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in 1889, was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a prominent literary movement of the 1920s. His work ranged from vernacular verse celebrating peasant life in Jamaica to poems that protested racial and economic inequities. His philosophically ambitious fiction, including tales of Black life in both Jamaica and America, addresses instinctual/intellectual duality, which McKay found central to the Black individual’s efforts to cope in a racist society. He is the author of The Passion of Claude McKay: Selected Poetry and Prose (1973), The Dialectic Poetry of Claude McKay (1972), Selected Poems (1953), Harlem Shadows (1922), Constab Ballads (1912), and Songs of Jamaica (1912), among many other books of poetry and prose. McKay has been recognized for his intense commitment to expressing the challenges faced by Black Americans and admired for devoting his art and life to social protest, and his audience continues to expand. Source

December, 1919

Last night I heard your voice, mother,

The words you sang to me

When I, a little barefoot boy,

Knelt down against your knee.

And tears gushed from my heart, mother,

And passed beyond its wall,

But though the fountain reached my throat

The drops refused to fall.

'Tis ten years since you died, mother,

Just ten dark years of pain,

And oh, I only wish that I

Could weep just once again.

Published:

1921

Length:

Shorty

Literary Movements:

Harlem Renaissance

Anthology Years:

2022

Themes:

Death & Loss

Family