Black Poetry : If We Must Die by Claude McKay(1919)

PositiveMindset

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Nov 26, 2002
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Claude McKay (1889-1948), born in Jamaica, was one of the "founding fathers" of the Harlem Renaissance, as the media of that time (1917-1935) named it. Believed 2 have been surpassed poetically only by Langston Hughes

If We Must Die

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted & penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
 
Yes, this was among one of my favorite pieces of his.

My favorite lines are the last 2, so powerful & true 2 this day:
"Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!"

I would also like 2 ask everyone 2 find a piece by any black writer & post it sometime, because we as poets must embrace our foreparents. My favorite is Amiri Baraka.
 

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