2.0
Constab Ballads
ByPublisher Description
A classic poetry collection with the main focus based on the police force of McKay's time, including his famous poem "If We Must Die".
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2.0

Johnson, et al.
Created 12 months agoShare
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“Festus Claudius “Claude” McKay is a man clown. A lovely poet but a man clown nonetheless. These poems prove that fact. Here’s my short and sweet review of Constab Ballads, his collection of poems, in 300 words or less.
Now, sake ob a to’n-bred miss,
You mus’ treat me laka dis!
Tramplin’ me under you’ feet,
Tu’nin’ me out in de street.
- Claude McKay, “Disillusioned”
I’ll get right to the chase. Constab Ballads is not a very good collection of poetry. Claude McKay would move on to do great work, and the inclusion of his famous “If We Must Die” (written much later than the poems in collection) at the very start of this collection, is testament of that. However, this, the second of his poetry collections written in Jamaica, leaves me wanting. Huge disclaimer that I am also not an avid reader or even a fan of poetry, but his lines, his language, nothing really excites me. I am in love with the historicity with which each peace is written because it is a beautiful archive of both queer life in Jamaica in the 1990s and queerness in the Jamaican Police Force. Beyond that, he did strike gold—well maybe not gold, maybe silver—with his poems “Bennie’s Departure,” “Disillusioned,” “Consolation” and “Knutsford Park Races.” In my unpoetic opinion, this collection could have been much better had his voice not felt like he was conflicted as to whether to bring his poetry into the world in English or Jamaican Patois.”
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