For a long time, I’ve wondered if there might not exist some audio recording of Claude McKay, or even film—and why not?—but have never found any, despite occasionally searching YouTube, until today.
Actually, I was looking for a nice rendition of “If We Must Die,” his most popularly recorded and recited poem. Most of the versions were not too good, and a surprising number contained errors of one kind or another: mispronunciation, switching of word order, substitution, or omission. One recording stood out above the rest and I kept returning to it. At first I didn’t realize it was McKay himself.
I’ve found three distinct audios: McKay talking about his most famous poem; a reading of three poems together (“If We Must Die”, “St. Isaac’s Church, Petrograd”, “The Tropics in New York”); and “If We Must Die” all by itself (I haven’t listened carefully enough to notice if this is an extraction from the reading of three and therefore the same audio).
Here is the introduction:
Actually, I was looking for a nice rendition of “If We Must Die,” his most popularly recorded and recited poem. Most of the versions were not too good, and a surprising number contained errors of one kind or another: mispronunciation, switching of word order, substitution, or omission. One recording stood out above the rest and I kept returning to it. At first I didn’t realize it was McKay himself.
I’ve found three distinct audios: McKay talking about his most famous poem; a reading of three poems together (“If We Must Die”, “St. Isaac’s Church, Petrograd”, “The Tropics in New York”); and “If We Must Die” all by itself (I haven’t listened carefully enough to notice if this is an extraction from the reading of three and therefore the same audio).
Here is the introduction:
Three poems read by Claude McKay:
“If We Must Die”:
I believe these are recordings from the Smithsonian, but don’t know the provenance or the occasion, nor if there are any more.
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