I’ve really enjoyed these poems by Claude McKay. They all seem to capture many of the feelings that African Americans had during this time. The poems covered many of the main topics from the Harlem Renaissance including race relations, the oppression African Americans faced, a longing for their African culture, and feelings of isolation in the United States.
One of my favorite poems by McKay is Outcast. I found this to be a very powerful poem. I feel that this poem is easy for all readers to relate to because everyone has felt like an outcast at some point in their lives. Many of us have not felt the kind of isolation that McKay and other African Americans faced at this time but to a lesser degree I can definitely relate to this poem. There were several lines that stuck out above the rest. McKay states “something in me is lost, lost forever, some vital thing has gone but of my heart” (40). What I most appreciated about this poem is that McKay expressed his emotions so freely and openly. McKay is declaring to the white man that he has robbed African Americans of precious parts of who they are as a people. I feel that this is how many African Americans felt in the United States as they faced the oppression and discrimination. McKay goes on in the poem to state that “the great western world holds me in fee, and I may never hope for full release” (40). This is a truly sad outlook on the situation. McKay feels as if he and his fellow African Americans will never reclaim what has been lost to them. This poem really brought my understanding of the hardships that African Americans faced to another level.
In class this week, we discussed themes throughout McKay’s poems. There are two of his poems that struck me as having similar qualities. The Harlem Dancer and Harlem Shadows both highlight young, African American girls who are working for a living. In these poems, the girls are doing what they need to do to survive. The innocence and vulnerability of young African American girls seemed to really appeal to McKay and he expressed this through his writing. In my opinion, McKay was very distressed by the unfortunate circumstances that led young African American girls to work in degrading situations. I could really empathize with the young girl in The Harlem Dancer. McKay portrays the personal struggle that the girl is facing by stating “looking at her falsely-smiling face, I knew her self was not in that strange place” (39).
2 comments:
I like how you felt like you could relate to the poem Outcast. I guess I’ve been too busy decoding the poems and stories to see where the author and African Americans stood that I haven’t given much thought to how other people could relate to them. I agree though that everyone has felt out of place at least once in their lives and can understand where McKay’s strong feels for emptiness and loneliness come from. I think its interesting that McKay threw in line five which reads “I would go back to darkness and to peace” but it’s an ironic statement. I associate a dark place with sadness, anger, frustration, and confusion, but McKay describes it as peaceful which just confuses me. That is the only line that I feel doesn’t fit into the structure and style of writing in this poem because McKay’s thoughts and feelings are described clearly in all the other lines.
I think it is great that you took the time to not just read the poems but really think about them and what they meant to the people writing them. I completely agree that this was a very powerful poem. It is a great poem for others to relate to and I think it's great that he expresses such emotion in the poem. He does it so well that the reader can empathize with him because it is almost like we are there with him feeling the same emotions - I though it was a great poem as well.
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