Harlem Shadows: Poems

by Claude McKay, Jericho Brown (Introduction)

A harbinger of the Harlem Renaissance first published in 1922, this collection of poignant, lyrical poems explores the author's yearning for his Jamaican homeland and the bitter plight of Black people in America--now with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown.

With pure heart, passion, and honesty, Claude McKay offers an acute reflection on the complex nature of racial identity in the Caribbean diaspora, encompassing issues such as nationalism, freedom of expression, class, gender, and sex. The collection's eponymous poem, Harlem Shadows, portrays the struggle of sex workers in 1920s Harlem. In If We Must Die, McKay calls for justice and retribution for Black people in the face of racist abuse.

Juxtaposing the cruel noise of New York City with the serene beauties of Jamaica, McKay urges us to reckon with the oppression that plagues a long-suffering race, which he argues has no home in a white man's world. Poems of Blackness, queerness, desire, performance, and love are infused with a radical message of resistance in this sonorous cry for universal human rights. Simultaneously a love letter to the spirit of New York City and a list of grievances with its harsh cruelty, Harlem Shadows is a stunning collection that remains all too relevant one hundred years after its original publication.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, African American Literature, Race, African American, Queer, Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Jamaican-born American writer Claude McKay figured prominently in the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s; his works include collections of poetry, such as Constab Ballads (1912), and novels, including Home to Harlem (1928).

Home to Harlem, a best-seller, won Festus Claudius McKay, a poet and a seminal figure, the Harmon gold award for literature.
He also wrote novels Banjo and Banana Bottom . People not yet published his manuscript, called Amiable with Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem , of 1941.
McKay also authored collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, Gingertown . He authored two autobiographical books, A Long Way from Home and My Green Hills of Jamaica , published posthumously. He entitled a non-fiction, socio-historical treatise Harlem: Negro Metropolis . People published his poetry collection, Harlem Shadows , in 1922 among the first books during the Harlem renaissance. Survivors published his Selected Poems posthumously in 1953.

Reviews

[Oscreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this one a lot!! Loved reading more of Claude McKays work. I highly recommend this one for those who want to read some poetry.

[Nicole (Nerdish.Maddog) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been trying to read all the major works of the Harlem Renaissance so I decided to finally dive into a little of its poetry. Claude McKay has a way with words about love and loss that make you feel the connection, passion, heartache and absence. He has several poems about the wonders and beauty of nature, while also speaking of the magic found in the city that never sleeps. He speaks of New York with passion and anger that reminds readers what America was really like back then and how it treated the black community (and still does). Despite his justified rage I saw this as a collection of LOVE; Love for flowers, love for places, love for a country that doesn't exist yet and love for other people.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this.

[theperksofbeingmarissa ;) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lynching and Flirtation are my favorite poems from this collection.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I really liked this, but, despite some amazing moments, I didn’t love it the way I wanted to.

It’s hard to fully assess this work without recognizing that McKay was intentionally using sonnets as a way to talk heavy subjects with a lilting aristocratic form. He could talk about sex, slavery, institutional racism, capitalism, prostitution, marijuana and rebellion kind of under the radar because the format makes light of these.

That said, the sonnet for did frequently interfere with my absolute enjoyment of his otherwise fantastic lyricism.

Still, there are some truly powerful pieces in this, sitting right next to some wondrous delights.

[Tonya Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome

Another great classic that's available on kindle unlimited. There are a series of these classics. I'm going to read them all!! Included in series are books from Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington and Sojourner Truth, just to name a few.

[Micaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sat with this for a while. McKay weaves his reflections on love, grief, racism, nature, Jamaica, Harlem, and so much more in such a delicate yet punching way. I didn’t want this collection to end 🫶🏾

[Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m still not sure poetry is my thing, but an enjoyable read.

Favourites were The White City, When I Have Passed Away, and Polarity.

[Grady Ormsby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Claude McKay is not known to most people. He was born in Jamaica in 1890. As a teenager he met Walter Jekyll, an English clergyman who renounced religion, emigrated to Jamaica, and became a planter. In addition, and most important for McKay, he collected and published songs and stories from the local African-Caribbean community. Jekyll became a mentor and an inspiration for the young man and encouraged him to focus on his writing. In 1912. McKay published his first book of poems, Songs of Jamaica, They were the first poems written and published in Jamaican Patois [a dialect of mainly English words and Twi (Ghanaian language).]

McKay’s parents were well-to-do farmers and had the means to foster his education. In the same year that his poems were published he went to Alabama to attend Tuskegee Institute. He didn’t stay long due to what he considered a regimented atmosphere. He went to study agronomy at Kansas State Agricultural College. It was there that he read W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk. This had a powerful impact on him and stirred his interest in politics. In 1914 he decided he did not want to be an agronomist and moved to New York City to focus on writing and politics.

There he met Crystal and Max Eastman, publishers of The Liberator, a monthly socialist magazine. McKay served as co-executive editor until 1922. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World. He also became involved with a group of black radicals and fought for black self-determination within the context of socialist revolution.

In 1919 McKay traveled to London. He wound up staying several years. From there he was a frequent traveler. He went to Russia and Morocco and after that spent eleven years venturing through Europe and parts of Northern Africa.

Though often living or traveling abroad, he is considered to be a major writer of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s. His work challenged white authority while celebrating Jamaican culture. Among his works that challenged racial discrimination is the poem “If We Must Die.” Along with “The Lynching” it is viewed as a call for his people to fight with determination and courage against those who would murder them. It is included in the collection I read, Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay.

The poems in the volume fall into several categories. There are love poems, city/country poems, poems comparing tropic and temperate climates with an abundance of floral references. There is childhood nostalgia, anger, alienation, and introspection over his mother’s early death. Politically his message was socialist with calls to workers to rise. Not unpatriotic his attitude was, “America despite your hatred, I still love you.”

Most of the poems are sonnets with a few octets usually rendered in iambic pentameter. He uses varied meter and varied rhyme. His diction is sometimes hyperbolic and over-blow but can be excused as a function of passion.

A prolific writer, he published six collections of poetry, seven works of fiction, and four of non-fiction as well as a collection of music.

[lauraღ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will come out, back to your world of tears,
A stronger soul within a finer frame.

3.5 stars. Really lovely! At first I just thought this collection was okay; I wished it would touch more on Jamaica and immigration than it did, and also, a lot of the poems rhyme and are metred. That isn't always my favourite form of poetry, if it isn't precisely and skilfully done, because with a lot of poets it tends to sound forced, as if they're trying to choke the idea into the format, and trim the edges so it fits. And I have to say, a few of these poems did feel like that to me, and I found myself wondering what they would sound like in free verse. But about halfway through the collection, things just sorta picked up, and I started enjoying it a lot more. Especially just for the poetic language, and how he spoke about romance. A lot of pretty phrasing. I do kinda wish there'd been more dialect, but, ah well. Listened to the audiobook as read by Ron Butler, which was pretty okay. Not my favourite performance from him, but good. I'd love to read more of McKay's poetry, especially his works about Jamaica.

[Dan]

Second time through this.

Bucolic, pastoral poems about love and about missing Jamaica mixed with some fantastic angry poems about the way blacks are treated in America. I prefer the angry poems, but Jericho Brown makes a good case in the introduction that for all their formality, the bucolic poems were in their way as daring as the more overtly political ones.

[Noe ִ ࣪𖤐₊ ⊹ · Rating 5 out of 5]

hands down one of the best poems i’ve ever read in life, both in terms of literary style and content. mckay wrote a lot of poems regarding homesickness, love, heartbreak, and city life—all themes that i could heavily relate to. his usage of the sonnet tool—both to structure and liberate his poems—helped enhance his ideas about the relationship between society and who he is as a person. the use of the sonnet, biblical references, and the numerous literary devices spread throughout his works are reminiscent of romantic literature, but without the romantic element. the concepts in his poems are all sorrowful in some way—sometimes so sorrowful that they made me cry (i need to stop crying on modes of transport i swear). i could especially relate to his poems on homesickness (as an international student) and found his poems on love particularly beautiful (he must’ve loved someone deeply to write so touchingly 🥲). his rhyming couplets never fail to deliver, and i would definitely recommend these poems if you need a good cry once in a while

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection; got to know McKay through Langston Hughes and what was called the 'Harlem renaissance' phenomenon in the interwar period. Favorite:

Baptism

Into the furnace let me go alone;
Stay you without in terror of the heat.
I will go naked in—for thus ‘tis sweet—
Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.
I will not quiver in the frailest bone,
You will not note a flicker of defeat;
My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet,
My mouth give utterance to any moan.
The yawning oven spits forth fiery spears;
Red aspish tongues shout wordlessly my name.
Desire destroys, consumes my mortal fears,
Transforming me into a shape of flame.
I will come out, back to your world of tears,
A stronger soul within a finer frame.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

RTC

[Jaclyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an impulse buy, and I’m so glad I did! I loved all of the poems in here. His imagery is beautiful.

[Sloane Deterding · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked these but didn't love them

[Soph · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for school, but was actually quite good

[Jeremy Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Placed in time, a contemporary peer of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay’s poetry in Harlem Shadows feels incredibly juvenile and shallow, like he never really digs below the surface of what bothers him, jumping from stale rhymes that were forced into the text. Even when he’s dealing with love, or the loss of it, most of his words come across like the reflections of a teenage boy, with potential for serious contemplation that never really gets going beyond the satisfaction of human desire. But as writers go, McKay was also a rising novelist at the time of Harlem Shadows and I’d be willing to see if his storytelling dove into more uncharted waters. Because every once in a while, this young poet showed glimmers of great, rhythmic style.

“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!
...We’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”

[Rebecca Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Harlem Shadows (published 1922), McKay captures his shock and disappointment at the discrimination he found in the United States. Racial identity is a key theme throughout the volume, and I found these themes hidden in many poems. He also wrote poems that encouraged people to be themselves, and his personal voice gives these poems an urgency. He also poignantly captures his homesickness for his tropical home. And although he wrote Harlem Shadows almost a century ago, his search for identity and place in a busy foreign world is one that we can still relate to.

I am a white woman and a stay-at-home mom living close to where I was born, and yet McKay’s racial frustrations and calls for individuals to remain strong, as well as his longings for the familiar, resonate with me. McKay’s beautiful poetry is well worth reading and revisiting.

More on my blog

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This particular tome by Claude McKay is a groundbreaking work in American and African American literature, arresting the vitality, struggles, and pliability of Black life during the Harlem Renaissance. This anthology is not only a thoughtful examination of exclusivity and racial consciousness but also a testament to McKay’s mastery of poetic form and his deep empathy for humanity. McKay’s themes span from the hardships of African Americans to universal musings on love, nature, and human suffering. The titular poem, Harlem Shadows, emotionally depicts the dilemma of marginalized women, exploring themes of poverty and systemic oppression with haunting imagery. Poems like ‘If We Must Die’ and ‘To the White Fiends’ express a rebellious confrontation to racial injustice, underlining the self-respect and power of the oppressed. McKay’s verses encapsulate both anger and hope, resonating with the collective struggles of Black Americans and oppressed communities worldwide. McKay’s command of traditional forms, particularly the sonnet, is striking. His ability to blend classical structures with modern and politically charged themes is remarkable. While some critics of his time may have viewed his adherence to traditional forms as counterintuitive to the avant-garde spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, McKay’s approach shows how old-fashioned forms can be wielded to challenge oppressive narratives. His diction is glowing and reminiscent, often amalgamating the pastoral with the urban to create a unique aesthetic. Published at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Harlem Shadows helped delineate the movement and paved the way for future generations of Black writers. McKay’s exploration of racial identity, cultural heritage, and socio-political resistance remains relevant in today’s discourse on race and equity. His influence can be seen in the works of later poets like Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. Now, if one was to pick out the standout pieces in this collection, they’d certainly include: 1) If We Must Die: A rallying cry against oppression and violence, this sonnet is one of McKay’s most famous works, embodying a fierce spirit of resistance; 2) The Tropics in New York: A nostalgic meditation on McKay’s Jamaican heritage, juxtaposing lush tropical imagery with the alienation of urban life; 3) Flame-Heart: A tender recollection of youthful guiltlessness and the ache of longing for one’s homeland. To conclude, was can safely say that ‘Harlem Shadows’ is an enduring masterpiece that transcends its time, offering profound insights into the complexities of race, identity, and the human condition. Claude McKay’s poetic voice is as pertinent today as it was 100 years back, reminding us of the muscle of art to challenge unfairness and celebrate humanity. For readers interested in the Harlem Renaissance, African American literature, or the connection of poetry and social justice, Harlem Shadows is an indispensable read.

[Ryan Macoubrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Jamaican-born poet Claude McKay published his book of poetry HARLEM SHADOWS in 1922, it was one of the first books published of the Harlem Renaissance -- an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s.

And what a good book it was! HARLEM SHADOWS is a collection of 74 poems with the one thing I like most in poetry: poems written with meter and rhyme. Most of the poems in this collection were even proper sonnets! That was awesome. (The poem "When Dawn Comes to the City" even seemed to me to have some echoes of Edgar Allan Poe within it.)

Which is not surprising considering what McKay writes in the preface to his book, that he grew up in Jamaica reading English books and being taught by English tutors. Jericho Brown writes in his Introduction to HARLEM SHADOWS, "Like any other educated English speaker at the turn of the century, McKay centered his literary studies on the work of British writers, which is to say that his first poetic influences most likely spanned Shakespeare to John Keats and all the other white men in between."

But McKay takes these more formal forms (which I like) and adds to them a range of subject matters and and contexts well beyond anything Shakespeare or Keats could have written, and that's what makes so many of these poems excellent.

Of the subjects covered by these poems, there's not only love, which is to be expected in any collection of poetry, but many poems about being a poor working Black person in America ("Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table," "Spring in New Hampshire," and "On the Road"), many poems about being homesick for Jamaica and Africa (including "I Shall Return," "Flame-Heart," "The Tropics in New York," and "To One Coming North"), and even some heartbreaking poems about the death of his mother (including "My Mother," and "December, 1919").

Several poems deal with issues of race and hatred in America, isolation and loneliness, and even one surprisingly funny poem about taking a day off to just be lazy ("French Leave"). His sonnet "The Tired Worker," about a worker who is so tired after work that he just wants to sleep, but then the dawn comes up again and he has to go back to work -- man, I felt that. I've been there, too.

Now, not every poem in the collection was a winner. Some of them were just your typical poems about nature or his own friends, things like that. They were fine, but nothing special.

But man, the bulk of these poems were excellent, with powerful vivid imagery and quotable turns of phrase and unexpected significance. This was an impressive collection of poetry, overall.

5 out of 5 stars!

[Colin Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently, I spoke to a class about the antagonism I feel toward the literature anthology. There are a handful of reasons to find anthologies frustrating, but on this day I spoke about how anthologies circumscribe a reader’s understanding of a writer, poet, or playwright. This tendency is particularly noticeable with poets. Too often, anthologies reduce volumes of production to a compact series of predictable poems. Naturally, as with all anthologies, there is a utility to this practice, but that utility comes at the cost of understanding the breadth and scope of a poet’s production. Plus, many anthologies ignore underwhelming or simply bad poems by canonical figures. There is little, I argue, more instructive than reading a bad poem from a great poet.

This is one of many reasons why I read Claude McKay’s 1922 collection, Harlem Shadows. It is a breathtaking collection of poems that demonstrate McKay’s range and skill. In addition to heavily-anthologized poems such as “Harlem Shadows” and “America,” Harlem Shadows contains thoughtful, and at times underwhelming, poems on home, racial, social, and geographic displacement, and even romance. Reading Harlem Shadows in its entirety is an education in the ways single volumes of poetry trace the development of a poet’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and preoccupations. Many, for example, of McKay’s early poems focus on his memories of Jamaica, the home he left in 1912 when he migrated to the United States. This theme fades near the end of Harlem Shadows, and in its place steps a cavalcade of poems about unrequited love. These themes bookend Harlem Shadows beautifully and suggest a possible sense of maturity on the poet’s part.

Not every poem in Harlem Shadows is perfect, but that remains one of the book’s most appealing features. Harlem Shadows is a flawed and imperfect read, but its blemishes are just as striking as its beauty marks.

[Barty (Bartholomew) Wu · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this for my african-american studies class. this is a book that would benefit from a calm mind and a large block of leisurely time. mckay has a lyrical genius that enables him to write poems in the most musical manner, which i would say is one of the things i liked most about this collection. there is also quite a lot of play with temporality and nostalgia, which i really liked.

i gave it five stars, but sometimes i found his word choices to be a little too repetitive. for example, he kept using the words "swarthy" and "pregnant." though i really liked how the word pregnant was used, using it five times in the course of this collection with most of its uses being for similar effects. i also found it to be a little repetitive in form at times. mckay really likes to incorporate turns in his concluding couplets, and you kind of start to expect it before it even happens. this is probably because i read the poems consecutively, but i could see the turns coming off as more witty than they already are (and they are incredibly witty already) if i read each poem as a standalone piece.

reading it cover to cover has its benefits, though. the order in which mckay arranged these poems is very interesting. one notable example would be two poems about dawn being put together consecutively, but they portray dawn in very different lights. there is also a gradual progression of coldness to warmth as the collection moves forward.

there is simply a lot of thought being put in this collection and i enjoyed it a lot.

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was a joy to read with the season transitioning from spring to summer. McKay's language is often sweet and to the point, undergirding by soft, traditional musical forms. Furthermore, this affect is influenced by his love for naturalistic imagery and reference to various plants and animals. The vast majority of poems here run a half page and feel like sketched vignettes. This concise is impressive, given the focus usually directed to a single figure (like a worker or dancer) or event (like a lynching or a baptism). Of special interest is the large offering of sonnets as well as the manner in which McKay uses the form to speak on racism and social unrest. While race, class consciousness, immigration, and city life appear as consistent themes, this is ultimately a very romantic volume. Some interesting poems sprinkled across the text speak to an interracial love affair, offering intriguing historical documentation to the social anxieties suffusing McKay's contemporary. Some favorite poems include: "Homing Swallows," "The White City," "My Mother," "The Tired Worker," and "The Lynching."

[Lawrence Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fresh edition of Mr. McKay's 1922 anthology, and it is brilliant. Mr. McKay has been faulted for his formalism, but given that contemporary poetry tends to be self-pitying I-I-I-Me-Me-Me-Poor Me free verse (which is seldom verse at all), faulting the meticulous craftsmanship and artistry of Mr. McKay would be a matter of sour grapes indeed.

The word choices also can seem awkward - we would never write "foe" now, but a century ago it was a matter of formal style. Nattering at Mr. McKay's diction would be as pointless as faulting Keats for his.

Jericho Brown's introduction is professional and most useful, although he feels the need to toss in such contemporary filler-usages as "subversion" and "interrogating," which will date his essay quickly.

The cover is garish, but the typeface is clear and accessible, and the size and flexibility of the paperback makes this edition a fine vade mecum.

Thanks to Modern Library, Mr. Brown, and all who were involved in making Mr. McKay's poems available to a new generation.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 1922 poetry collection is wide-ranging and beautifully composed. As the title hints, this is a product of that great literary and artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.

The seventy-plus poems include sonnets and various other forms of poems, mostly lyric and rarely more than a couple pages in length. Besides being varied in form, they poems are also diverse of tone -- from frank invectives on race to sweet love poems. They take New York as their home and tap into the verve of the day. The collection includes many of McKay's best-known poems including: "If We Must Die," "America," and "Harlem Shadow." Though bucolic beauties such as "Spring in New Hampshire" and "The Snow-Fairy" are not to be skipped over.

I enjoyed these poems and found them powerful and lyrical.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who's the greatest sonneteer of the 20th century? Claude McKay certainly gives Edna St. Vincent Millay a run for the money. (Please make your argument in sonnet form, using their last names for the final couplet.) But whereas Millay sticks to love as her topic, McKay's iambic passion is something altogether different. His finest poems in this realm -- "If We Must Die," "The White City," and "The Lynching" -- are incandescent with fury. Injustice, too, can make the heart ache. Which isn't to say the man couldn't pen a perfectly delectable love poem: "Romance" is one of the sweetest bits of amorous verse I've read in a long, long time. It's not a sonnet but the rhymes are sublime.

[Agnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cohesive & meaningful.

My favorite:
IN BONDAGE

I would be wandering in distant fields
Where man, and bird, and beast, lives leisurely,
And the old earth is kind, and ever yields
Her goodly gifts to all her children free;
Where life is fairer, lighter, less demanding,
And boys and girls have time and space for play Before they come to years of understanding—
Somewhere I would be singing, far away.
For life is greater than the thousand wars
Men wage for it in their insatiate lust,
And will remain like the eternal stars,
When all that shines to-day is drift and dust
But I am bound with you in your mean graves,
O black men, simple slaves of ruthless slaves.

[Julie Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating to read this book of poetry by Claude McKay that helped kick off the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to the several famous ones, there are many that evoke the time and are quite powerful. The best known is "If We Must Die," and it is useful to see that classic poem alongside the others. But most of these were written during the "red summer" of 1919, with its race riots, racism, but also the degree of fighting back against oppression by African Americans, and many of the poems capture that spirit.

[Dre Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harlem Shadows is the cool, pale, twinge of twilight that hits the concrete jungle. In this collection, McKay pens his love for New York (Harlem), the seasons, and even elements and forces of nature. All of which is juxtaposed by the justified rage of a black person of the era, or frankly, any era. In a way, that rage has a timelessness that transcends into the now. Into the present. But so too, does the love. The softness. The gentle twinkling of light, and the dewy mist the dusts off McKay's words. Harlem Shadows feels like one of those pivotal, must read, kind of collections.