18 pages • 36 minutes read
When Dawn Comes to the City
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“The Tropics in New York” by Claude McKay (1922)
A riff on the theme of displacement and evocative nostalgia, in this variation the poet focuses on the tropical fruits available in the city and how, despite their pungent tastes and sweet aromas, they cannot recreate the feel of feasting on those fruits back home in Jamaica. The senses can be fooled but not the memory as “a wave of longing through my body swept,” and the speaker’s eyes dim with tears.
“Subway Wind” by Claude McKay (1922)
A city subway train arrives in a roar of wind that is tired and trapped; the wind longs to exist elsewhere, naturally, as an aid to ships and over the seas that surround a tropical island. The contrast between city and country is a familiar theme for McKay, and here it finds both inventive and lyrical expression.
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes (1921)
Written by one of the most recognized poets of the Harlem Renaissance, this poem explores both Black cultural identity and historical experience, comparing the depth of both to rivers that have flowed since the beginning of time.
Further Literary Resources
“Claude McKay and the New Negro of the 1920s” by Wayne Cooper (1964)
This seminal study of McKay positions him among the poets who came to define the Harlem Renaissance. Although McKay spent several years of the 1920s in Europe, the article points out that he returned to New York City with the awareness of being a Black American that came to define the movement. In the poems that came after the collection in which “When Dawn Comes to the City” appeared, McKay evolved beyond the homesickness and sense of displacement of those early poems to assert his own dignity and defend against inequality.
“The Radical Poetry of Claude McKay” by Amira Allah (2016)
McKay was capable of using his poetry to incite inflammatory action, therefore, this article addresses the radicalism within McKay’s poetry and notes McKay’s evolution into a spiritual revolutionary.
“Becoming the People’s Poet: Claude McKay’s Jamaica Years, 1889-1912” by Winston James (2003)
This article examines McKay’s childhood and adolescence in Jamaica in relation to the poems of his first collection, Songs of Jamaica, which gives voice to issues with economic inequities, police misbehavior, and the oppressive presence of colonialism. James believes these early years are critical to understanding McKay’s aesthetics, how his position as a “wandering exile” only anchored him to the Jamaica to which he never returned.
Listen to the Poem
Though there are no readings of “When Dawn Comes to the City” available on any social media platform, there are readings available on YouTube of “The Tropics in New York,” regarded as a companion piece to “When Dawn Comes to the City.”
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By Claude McKay
