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 Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay - Ocho Rios, Jamaica Posted by:  neoc1
N 18° 24.943 W 077° 08.253
18Q E 274207 N 2037510
A marker celebrating six Legends of Jamaica includes poet, novelist, and journalist Claude McKay. It is located in the entrance plaza to Dunn's River Falls in Ocho Rios.
Waymark Code: WMQQA1
Location: Jamaica
Date Posted: 03/18/2016
Views: 3
Claude McKay was a born, raised and began his literary career in Jamaica. He started writing poetry at the age of 10 and publish his first books of poems, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads, in 1912 at age 20. He moved to the United States in 1912 and in 1914 settled in the Harlem section of New York City. Here he became a leader of the social justice and literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.
The Legends of Jamaica marker contains an autographed photo of Claude McKay and the following biographical information.
Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay
Poet, Novelist and Journalist
(15 September 1890 - 22 May 1948)
Birthplace: Clarendon, Jamaica
Claude McKay was born in Jamaica, West Indies. he was educated by his older brother, who
possessed a library of English novels, poetry, and scientific texts.
At age twenty, McKay published a book of verse called Songs of Jamaica, recording his
impressions of black life in Jamaica dialect. In 1912, he travelled to the United States to attend
Tuskegee Institute. He remained there only a few months, leaving to study agriculture at Kansas
State University.
One of the major figures of the Harlem Renaissance, wrote several
collections of poetry, novels, short stories, non-fiction, and autobiographical books. he lived in the
United States, primarily New York, from 1913 - 1919, and then spent most of the next 15 years in
England, Russia, France, Spain, and Morocco before returning to New York in 1934.
McKay's viewpoints and poetic achievements in the earlier part of the twentieth century set the
tone for the Harlem Renaissance and gained the deep respect of younger black poets of the time
including Langston Hughes. he died in 1948.
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