By Frank Cameron, Contributor 
Claude Mckay
Jerusalem is fading from men's minds, and sacred cities holding men in thrall are crumbling in the new thoughts of mankind.
The pagan day, the holy day for all!
Oh, Petrograd, oh proud triumphant city, the gateway to the
strange awakening East, where
warrior-workers wrestled
without pity against the power of
magnate, monarch, priest.
World Fort of Struggle, hold from day to day the flaming standards of the First of May.
JAMAICAN-BORN poet Claude McKay lived for many years in North America. He travelled often, and this beautiful poem was one of many that he wrote. After attending a Congress in Russia in 1923, he remained there for six months, and was regarded as a celebrity. He met Leon Trotsky and other important political figures, and spoke before many.
His visit was brought to a grand climax in Petrograd during the May Day celebrations of 1923. After returning to the former palace of the late Grand Duke Alexander where he was staying, he tried to sleep, but the colourful throngs continued to march before his eyes. Finally, he sat down and wrote what proved to be his farewell to Russia, the poem quoted above.
McKay began to write poetry in his childhood, and as an adolescent he composed many verses in a stilted, self-conscious imitation of the English models set before him. In 1912, at age 23, he authored two volumes of dialect poetry, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads.
Later, he migrated to the United States and continued to write when he resided in Harlem. He authored a book entitled Home to Harlem, which acquired best-seller status. Long before he wrote his last book, Harlem Glory, he had earned recognition for his unique and distinct Jamaican poetry, his rebel pioneering in the Harlem literary upsurge of the 1920s, and his influence on the rise of the Negritude Movement of Africa and Europe. In a lifetime of 58 years he had written 17 books, seven of which were published posthumously. He died of heart failure in 1948, and was buried in Chicago. It is understood why it was said of him, "McKay is not a great Negro Poet, he is a great Poet".
In the prelude to his book, A Long Way From Home, he said:
"All my life I have been a troubadour, wandering, nourishing myself mainly on the poetry of existence. All I offer here, is the distilled poetry of my experience".
In the field of literature, here was a man who left his world a better place than he found it. What a beautiful example this is, for all to follow!
