Claude McKay
Claude McKay was a talented young man and he loved what he did, as has life career. Claude McKay was born in Sunny Ville, Jamaica in the West Indies on September 15th in 1890. He loved his birthplace which inspired him to write his first two books about which were published in 1912. Claude McKay had a very exciting life hood growing up in the islands. Claude moved to the United States, was he then went to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He also attended many other universities in the U.S.A. in 1919 his poem “ If We Must Die”, it was published in Eastman’s Journal. A man by the name of Frank Harris encouraged Claude further his career by traveling all around the world. So Claude McKay then traveled to Europe were he studied many other things and he wrote many other novels there.
The poem I love is “If We Must Die” I like it so much I wanted to add it to the paper. Here it is.
In 1919 there was a wave of race riots consisting mainly of white assaults on black neighborhoods in a dozen American cities. Jamaican-born writer Claude McKay responded by writing this sonnet, urging his comrades to fight back. It had a powerful impact, then and later.
For what reason does McKay say even a doomed resistance is worthwhile?
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 accursed 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 deathblow!
What though before us lays the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
I like this poem so much because it is showing and telling me if you have to die which every does go out with a bang. Or should I say be known for something not bad but well, he is saying to me make life worth while don’t take it for granted.