Here come the girls! Yesterday, a plucky pair of Year 8s; today a Year 7. This poem is chosen and introduced by Katie G. Thank you, Katie! (And come on, you older girls: submissions please!)

My Poem of the Day is called ‘To One Coming North’ and it is by Claude McKay, who was a Jamaican writer and poet. He was born on the 15th of September 1889 and died on the 22nd of May in 1948. McKay was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, which allowed African-American writers, musicians and artists to become known for their art and their work. McKay’s first piece of work was the verse collection Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads. McKay won an award for Songs of Jamaica, which he used to finance a trip to America in 1912, where he studied at Kansas State College. When he finished his education, he began to write for a living.

‘To One Coming North’ has a speaker who tells us about the Northland and how we’ll be excited to arrive and see the snow and rivers. However he tells us that we’ll soon grow tired of the snow and cold and ‘cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw’. These adjectives create a feeling of homesickness and sadness as we are getting tired of the coldness of the Northern Isles and miss our home in the Southern Isles. But as it then turns to Spring we will appreciate it even more as it’s different to the never-changing Southern Isles and the Northland is ‘wreathed in golden smiles.’ This metaphor creates a feeling of wonder and astonishment to imagine the Northland in Spring bathed in golden, warm sunlight. This poem is most likely about when McKay moved from Jamaica to America. It was written in 1922 and published in the book Harlem Shadows.

I chose this poem because it makes me realise how much I appreciate things when they aren’t there, such as the sun in this example. The speaker missed his home because it was always sunny there, not knowing how much he appreciated it until he was no longer there. This is why he thinks it is so beautiful in the Northern Isles when it turns to spring. I also think that it tells us that some change can be good and useful as it can lead us to experience new things and not to draw our final conclusions about something until we have experienced it fully…

To One Coming North

BY CLAUDE MCKAY

At first you’ll joy to see the playful snow,

Like white moths trembling on the tropic air,

Or waters of the hills that softly flow

Gracefully falling down a shining stair.

And when the fields and streets are covered white

And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,

Or underneath a spell of heat and light

The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,

Like me you’ll long for home, where birds’ glad song

Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry,

And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong,

Beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky.

But oh! more than the changeless southern isles,

When Spring has shed upon the earth her charm,

You’ll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles

By the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.