Sherman's introduction discusses the life and career of McKay, who was born in Jamaica and came to live in the U.S. A novelist and essayist as well, he died in Chicago in 1948.
Many of the poems are written in Jamaican dialect. These dialect pieces have an energetic color and musicality. Many poems also show McKay's command of standard literary English; he writes some particularly fine sonnets.
Overall, this is a rich, diverse, and technically adept collection. There are many pointedly political poems that condemn racism and economic injustice, as well as sensuous love poems. There are poems that invoke both the rural tropics and the urban north.
These poems show McKay to be a master of meter, rhyme, and other aspects of poetry; he uses considerable variety throughout the collection. His best pieces combine a burning passion with his impressive technical prowess. Consider "A Capitalist at Dinner," a cutting political sonnet with a devastating final couplet; or "Song of the New Soldier and Worker," another political piece that uses stunning imagery and masterful audio effects.
McKay uses words as both lethal weapons against the forces of injustice and as tender instruments of passionate love. He is a poet of tremendous talent, and this collection is a real treasure.
This collection is not just the selections about racial injustice. There are also poems about his home in Jamaica, his job in the constabulary force there, and love. Through these diverse poems, you will get a better picture of McKay and his time. There is not a lot of biographical information listed in this book.
I would recommend the book. The first few poems are written in a Jamaican dialect which may make it difficult to read the first time. I found that reading it out loud opened the meaning and pronunciation for me. It is a good read.
This is just one example of McKay's great poetry. Read it, whether in this edition or another. His poems add great texture, not only to the Harlem Renaissance, but to African-American culture on a whole.
