Producing this book has been a labor of love—and a long march that taught a new historicist about the diligence and flexibility required of old-fashioned textual editors. A firm sense of the value of Claude McKay’s poetry kept me going. But so did many smart and charitable friends. Cary Nelson, editor of the University of Illinois Press’s American Poetry Recovery Series, provided useful advice from the first proposal to the final anxiety. Other colleagues in the English department at the University of Illinois—Nina Baym, Trish Loughran, Bob Parker, and Joe Valente—improved wordings, theories, and everything in between, as did the outside readers, Karen Ford and Jim Smethurst. Gary Holcomb and Adlai Murdoch, my favorite Caribbeanists, helped me better understand Jamaica and Jamaican. Todd Chatman patiently scanned poems for the last ClarisWorks holdout. Michael Bérubé, Cary Nelson, Bob Parker, Zohreh Sullivan, and Alan Wald lent their good names to various funding proposals. A session with the University of Illinois American Studies Reading Group reformed the introduction, as did audiences at meetings of the American Studies Association and the African American Literature and Culture Society. The Maxwells, Binders, Walkers, Riegers, and Moores reminded me of the pleasures of family while sharpening my wits. Maria Balshaw, Brad Campbell, Barbara Foley, Stephen Hartnett, Rob Henn, Scott Herring, Caren Irr, Suvir Kaul, Dwight McBride, Jim Miller, Bill Mullen, Audrey Petty, Siobhan Somerville, Mark Thompson, Michael Thurston, John Edgar Tidwell, Maurice Wallace, Rychetta Watkins, and David Wright kept hope alive and kept asking where the damn thing was.
Without generous assistance from several institutions, the thing in question would never have gone anywhere. I am particularly grateful to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and to the heirs of Claude McKay for permission to print McKay’s poems. Diana Lachatanere at the Schomburg and Karen Van Westering at the New York Public Library guided my way through the permissions process. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provided initial research time and money through a Helen Corley Petit Scholarship and an appointment at the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. A Donald C. Gallup Fellowship in American Literature funded work in the extensive McKay papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Patricia Willis, curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature, was hospitable beyond the call of duty. An Everett Helm Visiting Fellowship at Indiana’s Lilly Library gave me access to unique letters and hard-to-find poems. Last, but hardly least, I am indebted to my savvy and congenial editor, Bill Regier; to my sharp-eyed copyeditor, Jane Mohraz; and to the other good people at the University of Illinois Press.
Then there is Julia Walker. After my previous true confession, I can only admit that I hope that this book is half as good as yours and worth a thimble of the love you’ve given me.
The following poems were published in Selected Poems of Claude McKay, © 1953 by Bookman Associates, Inc., renewed 1981 by Twayne Publishers. Reprinted with permission of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the literary representative for the heirs of Claude McKay.
From “The Years Between,” 1925–34: “Like a Strong Tree”; “Russian Cathedral”
From “Cities,” circa 1934: “Barcelona”; “Tetuan”; “Moscow”; “Morocco”
From “The Cycle,” circa 1943: “36 [The white man is a tiger at my throat]”; “37 [It is the Negro’s tragedy I feel]”; “49 [And no white liberal is the Negro’s friend]”
From Final Catholic Poetry, 1945–47: “The Pagan Isms”; “The Wise Men of the East”; “Truth”; “The Word”
The following poems were first published in the magazines or collections indicated, © the heirs of Claude McKay. Used with permission of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the literary representative for the heirs of Claude McKay.
The Crisis: “Mummy” (published as “Skeleton,” June 1924); “The Void” (June 1924); “A Daughter of the American Revolution to Her Son” (Mar. 1926); “Retreat” (published as “In the Hospital,” Feb. 1927); “The International Spirit” (June 1928)
Bookman: “The Mulatto” (Sept. 1925); “Poppies and Poinsettias” (June 1926)
The Nation: “Home Song” (Mar. 24, 1926)
Opportunity: “My House” (Nov. 1926); “America in Retrospect” (Nov. 1926)
Challenge: “For a Leader” (Sept. 1, 1934)
Poetry Digest: “Cities” (Jan. 1935)
The Modern Monthly: “Note of Harlem” (July 1934)
The Catholic Worker: “23 [Lord, let me not be silent while we fight]” (published as “Look Within,” Jan. 1945); “[I turn to God for greater strength to fight]” (July–Aug. 1945); “51 [When the dictators set them up as Gods]” (Oct. 1945); “Faith” (Jan. 1946); “The Middle Ages” (May 1946)
Interracial Review: “The New Day” (Mar. 1946)
The Crusade Beacon: “Saint Meinrad” (Apr.–May 1946)
New Masses: “Song of New York” (May 1926); “[We are out in the field, the vast wide-open field]” (untitled poem contained in the short story “Truant,” included in Gingertown, © 1932 by Claude McKay; renewed 1959 by Hope McKay Virtue)
The following poems, published for the first time in Complete Poems, are individually © 2004 by the heirs of Claude McKay. Used with permission of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the literary representative for the heirs of Claude McKay.
From Early English and American Poetry, 1916–22: “In Memoriam: Booker T. Washington”; “Remorse”; “My Ethiopian Maid”; “My Werther Days”
From “The Clinic,” circa 1923: “Fixture”; “Patient”; “For Marguerite”; “Pageant”; “The Needle”; “Convalescing”
From “The Years Between,” 1925–34: “We Who Revolt”; “The Years Between”; “Tropical Rain”; “Dreams”; “Tribute”; “Two Songs of Morocco”; “A Song of Birth”
From “Cities,” circa 1934: “Tanger”; “Fez”; “Marrakesh”; “Xauen”; “Cadiz”; “Berlin”; “Paris”; “London”; “England”; “Black Belt Slummers”; “New York”
From “The Cycle,” circa 1943: “The Cycle”; “1 [Now, really I have never cared a damn]”; “2 [The millionaire from Boston likes to write]”; “3 [Where the Bostonian lives, I’m not aware]”; “4 [In Southern states distinctions that they draw]”; “5 [I wonder who these wealthy whites are fooling]”; “6 [Our boys and girls are taught in Negro schools]”; “7 [Tuskegee is disliked by Negro snobs]”; “8 [I feel quite proud of my black African face]”; “9 [There is a new thing, pretty and dime-bright]”; “10 [Now I should like to ask for illustration]”; “11 [They say in Harlem that I’m pretty washed up]”; “12 [The Communists know how Negro life’s restricted]”; “13 [Thus I’m boycotted by the Communists]”; “14 [The New York critics say, when Shakespeare wrote]”; “15 [They have a colored actor in this land]”; “16 [Hollywood is our first and greatest source]”; “17 [If I were white I’d be in Hollywood]”; “18 [When I go out into the crowded street]”; “19 [Whichever way the whites may writhe and squirm]”; “20 [And thus, I may be reaching those who mourn]”; “21 [Oh filthily they run the tenements]”; “22 [Black intellectuals deep dive for the bait]”; “24 [Oh, science keeps marching on from Time to Time]”; “25 [Men always fight by nations, tribes or groups]”; “26 [Of all the sects I hate the Communists]”; “27 [These intellectuals do not want to face]”; “28 [The Russian advocates drive high-powered cars]”; “29 [Of course, we have Democracy but it]”; “30 [Big, little white man had his mind made up]”; “31 [I’m utterly entranced by Westbrook Pegler]”; “32 [Oh, how exasperating are the antics]”; “33 [The Negro critic has his special way]”; “34 [America said: Now, we’ve left Europe’s soil]”; “35 [This is the New World that we left the old]”; “38 [Were I a poor white I would surely throw]”; “39 [In Black Harlem they held a little meeting]”; “40 [Oh can a Negro chant a hymn]”; “41 [No lady of the land will praise my book]”; “42 [One-tenth of India remains untouchable]”; “43 [Oh, let us have a real good time tonight!]”; “44 (Harlem’s Voice) [In “kingdom,” occult haunt and cabaret]”; “45 (Sufi Abdul Hamid) [Oh how they wrapped them in a maze of lies]”; “46 [The American white man is so vastly vain]”; “47 [They hate me, black and white, for I am never]”; “48 [It was the white man’s way to build together]”; “50 [Oh Marcus Garvey! They who hated you]”; “52 [In Ethiopia there are black Jews]”; “53 [And also Negro writers are being made]”
From Final Catholic Poetry, 1945–47: “[Oh shall those Holy Ages come again]”; “[The whites admit the Negroes have religion]”; “The Catholic Church”; “[The world was called forth by the word of God]”; “[Some Negroes say that Jesus Christ was swart]”; “Boomerang”; “For Peace”; “[I could not hate the German or the Jews]”; “[I do not go to church in search of God]”; “[Tell me not what love is because I know]”