I lived from 1889-1948. I was from Jamaica, and am in the Americas category.
I influenced poet Jesse Redmond Fauset.
Claude McKay was born in Jamaica, West Indies. He was educated by his older brother, who possessed a library of English novels, poetry, and scientific texts. At the age of twenty, McKay published a book of verse called Songs of Jamaica, recording his impressions of black life in Jamaica in dialect.
Popular poetry
- So much have I forgotten in ten years,
So much in ten brief years! I have forgot30 lines, 1 comment - Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;14 lines, 3 comments - I shall return again; I shall return
To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes14 lines - Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,13 lines, 4 comments - The sun sought thy dim bed and brought forth light,
The sciences were sucklings at thy breast;14 lines - When I have passed away and am forgotten,
And no one living can recall my face,12 lines, 6 comments - If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,13 lines - Your lips are like a southern lily red,
Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,20 lines, 1 comment - I plucked my soul out of its secret place,
And held it to the mirror of my eye,14 lines, 3 comments - Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning's white16 lines
