Claude McKay

Festus Claudius McKay, most commonly known as Claude McKay, was born in Sunny Ville, Jamaica. He was the youngest of eleven children. His parents were farmers who knew the importance of a good education, so they sent him to live with his brother who was a schoolteacher. Even as a child McKay loved to read. He began writing poetry as early as ten years old. He became the apprentice of a cabinet maker when the trade school he was planning on attending was destroyed by an earthquake. In 1907 an English gentleman by the name of Walter Jekyll became aware of McKay and became his mentor. Jekyll encouraged him to write in dialect verse. Walter put music to McKay's poetry. By the time he immigrated to the United States he had established himself as a poet. He published two volumes of dialect verse, "Songs of Jamaica" and...