Claude McKay's Early Poetry: A Digital CollectionMain MenuIntroduction: About this SiteAmardeep Singh, Lehigh UniversityConstab Ballads (1912) -- Digital EditionClaude McKay's "Constab Ballads"Songs of Jamaica (1912): Digital EditionBook of poetry by Claude McKay. Preface by Walter Jekyll.Early Uncollected Poetry (1911-1922)Uncollected Poems by Claude McKay published in Jamaican, British, and American magazinesWorkers Dreadnought PoetrySpring in New Hampshire (1920): Digital EditionHarlem Shadows (1922): Digital EditionHarlem Shadows Digital EditionSelected Poems of Claude McKay (1953)Approximating the Table of Contents of "Selected Poems of Claude McKay"Criticism and Contextual EssaysWorks CitedWorks Cited for "Claude McKay's Early Poetry (1912-1922)"TEI/XML Editions (in progress/coming soon)Links to TEI versions of these textsAmardeep Singhc185e79df2fca428277052b90841c4aba30044e1
Selected Poems of Claude McKay Cover
12017-07-18T10:38:53+00:00Amardeep Singhc185e79df2fca428277052b90841c4aba30044e1691Cover of 1953 Edition of "Selected Poems"plain2017-07-18T10:38:53+00:00Amardeep Singhc185e79df2fca428277052b90841c4aba30044e1
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12017-07-17T16:40:52+00:00Selected Poems of Claude McKay (1953)6Approximating the Table of Contents of "Selected Poems of Claude McKay"plain2017-09-13T20:53:29+00:00 Selected Poems of Claude McKay is the final collection of his poems authored by Claude McKay; it was published by Bookman & Associates in 1953 with an introduction by John Dewey. Subsequently, the Selected Poems was widely reprinted by Harvest/HBJ -- with the Dewey introduction replaced by a biographical note by Max Eastman.
Wayne Cooper indicates that Claude McKay put together this particular collection himself in his final year (1948); the collection was finally published posthumously in 1953. As far as we know, there is no indication that McKay intended for the selection to be restrictive, which is to say, by including this particular selection he was not necessarily disowning his other writing. It's worth noting that despite his turn, later in life, to a committed anti-Communist politics, McKay did keep many of his more passionate anti-racist poems in the collection (see the "Baptism" section).
The majority of the poems were taken from McKay's early poetry -- specifically from Harlem Shadows. Where McKay elected to include a poem published later -- especially where we are unclear about copyright questions -- we have not included the full text of the poem on this site. Intriguingly, poems from Constab Ballads and Songs for Jamaica are both almost entirely absent from Selected Poems. The one exception is "Sukee River," though the version McKay included here combines the first verse of the 1912 version of the poem (from Constab Ballads) with the 1920 version (from Cambridge Magazine and Spring in New Hampshire).
The main novelty of this collection consists of the thematic groupings McKay created around his poems: "Songs for Jamaica," "Baptism," "Americana," "Different Places," and "Amoroso." "Songs for Jamaica" are largely poems from Harlem Shadows that deal with "Home" (and indeed, the list of poems McKay picked out here overlaps with the "Home" tag on this site, derived independently from our interpretations of McKay's poems). Poems under "Baptism" largely deal with race-relations in the United States (compare to our "Race" tag). And "Amoroso" corresponds to our "Desire" and "Homoeroticism" tags.
