Complete Poems

By: Claude McKay, William Maxwell (Editor)

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Paperback | 14 August 2008

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456 Pages

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23.7 x 15.3 x 2.9

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Containing more than three hundred poems, including nearly a hundred previously unpublished works, this unique collection showcases the intellectual range of Claude McKay (1889-1948), the Jamaican-born poet and novelist whose life and work were marked by restless travel and steadfast social protest. McKay's first poems were composed in rural Jamaican creole and launched his lifelong commitment to representing everyday black culture from the bottom up. Migrating to New York, he reinvigorated the English sonnet and helped spark the Harlem Renaissance with poems such as "If We Must Die." After coming under scrutiny for his communism, he traveled throughout Europe and North Africa for twelve years and returned to Harlem in 1934, having denounced Stalin's Soviet Union. By then, McKay's pristine "violent sonnets" were giving way to confessional lyrics informed by his newfound Catholicism.

McKay's verse eludes easy definition, yet this complete anthology, vividly introduced and carefully annotated by William J. Maxwell, acquaints readers with the full transnational evolution of a major voice in twentieth-century poetry.

Industry Reviews

''Maxwell has edited this comprehensive volume superbly, hunting down every last poem... [He] has deepened our sense of McKay's life and increased our respect for the independence of mind behind all his work.'' Times Literary Supplement ''A volume that no student of the Harlem Renaissance ... or negritude, diaspora, and Caribbean language literature can live without... A vital contribution to black studies.'' African American Review ''Maxwell's introduction offers a fascinating overview of McKay's life and a spirited defense of his poetry.'' Los Angeles Times

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