Claude McKay, Modernism, Empire and the Harlem Renaissance

A Jamaican poet who rose to prominence in 1910s-1920s New York, Claude McKay is now thought of as a founding poet of the New Negro (or Harlem) Renaissance and a radical black Modernist. Yet his poetry was grounded in the lyric tradition. How can a poet of traditional verse be considered a Modernist? To answer this paradox, Dr Jak Peake, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, University of Essex, will look at the milieu and context of McKay’s published poems and reflect on the way his colonial Caribbean background shaped his literary taste.

 Claude McKay may now be thought of as both a founding poet of the New Negro (or Harlem) Renaissance and a radical black Modernist. Yet McKay’s poetry poses a challenge in terms of its Modernist purchase from a stylistic point of view. How do we read his poetry which, however revolutionary in content, is grounded in the lyric tradition? What are we to make of his predilection for the sonnet? Also, how do we interpret his preference for formal English – as opposed to a blues or jazz – after his initial publication of Jamaican poetry in dialect?