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Friday poem
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“America” by Claude McKay
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
From Liberator (Library of America, 1921).
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Don?t blame racism
Very interesting to see the date on this poem. Lest we think we’re in some unique low point in American history, surrounded by insurmountable reasons to despair, it’s good to know that 90 years ago, people were feeling the same thing.
I appreciate the ambivalence in the poem. It is very honest.
And I like sonnets very much.
McKay was a Jamaican who came to the US in 1914, encountering racism in the South. Also a communist.
Ah! the Harlem Renaissance!
I read the poem and thought of Countee Cullen’s Yet Do I Marvel, again with some of the same ambiguity, this tension between outer circumstance and yet the odd blessings that are part of it. James Weldon Johnson extends the thought even more with his great poem Lift Every Voice (sometimes called the Negro National Anthem).
As for McKay, don’t stop with him being a communist. Like so many of us, history kept coming at him. Later in life, he renounced Communism and joined the Catholic Church. Here’s a good account of that from Commonweal. This example might also serve as an encouragement for all of us who wonder about the wandering kids in our family — God keeps showing up and finding our address.
#1 ROBHAYS
“Lest we think we’re in some unique low point in American history, surrounded by insurmountable reasons to despair…”
Where did this come from? Are you listening to and believing the MSM?