17 pages 34 minutes read

Claude McKay

To One Coming North

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1922

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Poem Analysis

Analysis: “To One Coming North”

Written as four rhyming quatrains, or four-line stanzas, with an ABAB rhyme scheme, the reader can experience the poem as an elaborate allegory or metaphor for migration, whether it is the poet’s own journey from Jamaica to the United States or the Great Migration of Black people from the American south to the cities of the American north and west. The diction of the poem is formal and flowery, and its rhymes are easy. The imagery is pastoral, drawing on the ballad tradition of English poets like Robert Burns. However, what gives the poem its peculiar power is the fact that the romantic imagery expresses a social reality and a strong message of hope for people navigating the complex experience of displacement from lands they have come to regard as home. In the context of the poem, the south refers to both the geographical orientation of the tropical paradise of Jamaica the poet has left behind, as well as the region of the American south. Just like the American south, which is beautiful yet dangerous, the poet’s Caribbean homeland too is a symbol of the speaker’s memory and sense of nostalgia, as well as the complex experience of racial discrimination and violence.

Related Titles

By Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

Home To Harlem

Claude McKay

Home To Harlem

Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

If We Must Die

Claude McKay

If We Must Die

Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

Joy in the Woods

Claude McKay

Joy in the Woods

Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

The Harlem Dancer

Claude McKay

The Harlem Dancer

Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

The Lynching

Claude McKay

The Lynching

Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

The Tropics in New York

Claude McKay

The Tropics in New York

Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

The White House

Claude McKay

The White House

Claude McKay

Study Guide

logo

When Dawn Comes to the City

Claude McKay

When Dawn Comes to the City

Claude McKay