poetry, a fact that challenged many to rethink the
prevailing stereotypes and expectations that were
frequently placed upon writers of color.
McKay grew up in Jamaica, a colonized
Caribbean nation that did not gain its indepen-
dence from Britain until 1962. In the “Author’s
Word,” a prefatory note to the volume, McKay
commented on how he had been steeped in British
literary traditions. He also mused about the degree
to which that European influence and literary tra-
ditions were “adequate” but perhaps not entirely
suited to meet all of his creative aspirations. Re-
views of the book did note the absence of dialect
poetry. As biographer Wayne Cooper notes in his
discussion of the critical response to Harlem Shad-
ows, THENEWYORKTIMESreview praised McKay
for his successful and emphatic departure from the
dialect poetry tradition of Paul Laurence Dunbar,
the poet to whom McKay was by then regularly
being compared. According to Cooper, African-
American responses to McKay’s work were thor-
oughly enthusiastic. The review by Hodge Kirnon
in the NEGROWORLD,the official newspaper of
the MARCUSGARVEY’s UNITEDNEGROIMPROVE-
MENTASSOCIATION, celebrated McKay’s articula-
tions of widespread sentiments and similar
experiences by people of color in America. “I dare-
say many other aliens like myself,” confessed
Hodge, “have felt and thought in like manner
without ever giving [it] expression” (Cooper, 165).
WALTERWHITE, secretary of the NATIONALAS-
SOCIATION FOR THEADVANCEMENT OFCOLORED
PEOPLE, declared that McKay “is not a great Negro
poet—he is a great poet” (Cooper, 165).
Harlem Shadowsincluded a significant number
of poems on traditional themes such as nature,
memory, family, and love. Poems such as “Alfonso,
Dressing to Wait at Table” and “Wild May” re-
vealed McKay’s talent for crafting evocative por-
traits of people and their environments. Other
poems, including “The Tropics in New York” and
“Flame-Heart,” tackled issues of acculturation and
separation from home and spoke to the American
immigrant experience. In “To One Coming
North,” McKay addressed a prospective immi-
grant. He offered insightful commentary on how a
newly relocated individual’s feelings about a new
home and environment would evolve. “At first
you’ll joy to see the playful snow, /Like white moths
trembling on the tropic air,” he wrote. “Like me
you’ll long for home,” the speaker confessed,
“where birds’ glad song / Means flowering lanes
and leas and spaces dry.... /But oh! more than the
changeless southern isles, / When Spring has shed
upon the earth her charm, / You’ll love the North-
land wreathed in golden smiles / By the miraculous
sun turned glad and warm.” Other works, such as
“The City’s Love,” “America,” and “The White
City,” challenged the tendency to mythologize
America and ignore the painful disregard that
some groups suffered in their new homeland. The
eight-line poem entitled “The City’s Love” recalled
the unpredictable nature of America. “For one
brief golden moment rare like wine/ The gracious
city swept across the line,” confesses the narrator.
The speaker goes on to note that the city was
“Oblivious of the color of my skin, / Forgetting that
I was an alien guest/... bent to me, my hostile
heart to win.” The poem is powerful for its personi-
fication of the city and its swiftly delivered chroni-
cle of the uneasy relationship that can exist
between a city and its inhabitants, specifically its
inhabitants of color.
The poem that inspired the volume’s title,
“Harlem Shadows,” was a moving tribute and
startling address to “a lass / In Negro Harlem” and to
girls of color “who pass / To bend and barter at de-
sire’s call.” The poet lamented as he recalled the
sound of “timid little feet of clay, / The sacred brown
feet of my fallen race!... /In Harlem wandering
from street to street.” Others, like “On Broadway,”
gave readers a firsthand look at life in a bustling
urban center such as New York. This work, reprinted
in ALAINLOCKE’s definitive BOOK OFAMERICAN
NEGROPOETRY(1922), contributed to the invalu-
able literary history of Harlem and the era.
The volume was an impressive set of medita-
tions on American life and African-American ex-
periences. It had a profound effect on the writer
ARNABONTEMPS, who first came across McKay’s
work while he was in college. As Bontemps noted,
the volume represented a significant turning point
in American letters because “It was the first time
in nearly two decades... that any publisher had
ventured to offer a book of poems by a living black
poet” (NYT,6 June 1973, 50). McKay’s deft char-
acterizations of loss and acquisition complemented
well his writings on rage and resistance. The volumeHarlem Shadows 219