Joy in the Woods

Informed as much by his upbringing in his native Jamaica as by his embrace, as an immigrant in New York City, of the heady, idealistic rhetoric of Communism—with its heroic glorification of the downtrodden workers of the world—Claude McKay’s “Joy in the Woods” (1920) laments the dilemma of the modern worker torn between the love of the freedom and beauty of nature and the onerous, soul-numbing responsibilities of work.

Although now celebrated as one of the leading voices in the Harlem Renaissance, a near decade-long flowering of the arts among Black writers, artists, sculptors, and musicians centered in the bustling neighborhoods of Harlem, McKay here reveals why positioning him with the Harlem Renaissance might be problematic. If those artists celebrated the vibrant hum and rattle of city life, McKay here reveals he is not so certain that the cityscape is all that therapeutic or invigorating.

In this dilemma, McKay’s poem becomes a lamentation, a wistful acknowledgement that the contemporary worker, trapped by the pointless, endless monotony of routine as the only way to meet obligations and pay bills, is left with only the memory, really the craving, for the stunning wonders of nature from which the working class is now alienated.