Commentary
The poem I was most heavily influenced by was If We Must Die by Claude Mckay, and whilst Mckay’s original poem was about the defence of black rights and the threat of retaliation, I chose to change the topic of the poem in my rewrite; as the poem could fit into the voice of anyone in an oppressed minority group, I chose to modernise the poem and talk about the oppression of the LGBTQ+ community. Whilst racism and oppression of black people is still an unresolved issue in modern societies, I felt that the oppression of LGBTQ people was a perfect way to make a poem written in 1919 more relevant to a more modern audience.
In Mckay’s opening lines, when he writes “hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,” Mckay gives the reader the impression that subject ‘we’ are trapped and their slaughter is inevitable; he further highlights this by referring to them as ‘hogs,’ which by definition is a castrated male pig that is bred for slaughter. By comparing him and his people to ‘hogs,’ Mckay creates the impression that they have been doomed for the beginning and are born to be slaughtered. Mckay also uses the word ‘accursèd,’ and this reiterates the idea of the oppressed people being the ones who are cursed, rather than those who are attacking them. Whilst Mckay chooses to describe his own people, in my rewrite I chose to describe the opposition; I felt that describing his people as ‘hunted’ and ‘penned,’ Mckay was giving a platform to the views of his opposition, and I wanted my poem to have a more defiant tone.
Mckay also repeats the eponymous phrase ‘if we must die,’ throughout his poem, and I decided to change this idea in my rewrite of the poem; the word ‘must’ is a directive and implies the certainty of the death of the speaker and his people. Mckay also refers to his attackers as “mad and hungry dogs,” By dehumanising his attackers, Mckay shows that their bloodlust has turned them into something less than human; this begins an extended metaphor that runs throughout the poem where the speaker refers to the attackers with words like “monsters,” and “cowardly pack,” and this further emphasizes their malignancy as their own human nature has been overridden by their need for violence. In my poem, I chose not to describe any of the opposition in my poem because I did not want the reader to focus on the opposition, as I wanted the sole focus to be on the struggle of the speaker in the poem. In the last couplet of Mckay’s poem he uses the words “murderous” and “cowardly,” which ends the poem with a more defeated tone, whilst I made the decision to use the words “exist,” “create” and “love,”; these words together create a more hopeful tone, especially the word “create,” which for me signified the possibility of a more creative and progressive future.
The repetition of the word ‘die’ also solidifies the certainty of their death; because two of three quatrains start with the refrain ‘if we must die,’ this implies that the speaker is at peace with their apparent fate. However, in my version I chose to completely eradicate the use of the word “die,” choosing to replace it with the words “hide,” and “run.” These words do not carry the same certainty and heft that the word ‘die’ has, and this shows the reader that the possibility of survival in this situation is considerably higher, therefore giving the rest of the poem a much more hopeful tone. A considerable similarity between Mckay’s original poem and my rewrite is the use of the collective pronoun ‘we,’; as both speakers in the poem a speaking on behalf of a much larger oppressed group, the use of a collective noun shows the reader the solidarity between the speaker and the reader.
Throughout my poem, I chose to use aggressive language, such as “rampage,” “scream” and “rage.” I felt that by including moments of violence within a poem with quite a placid tone would remind the reader of the passion behind the speaker’s voice. By using a semantic field of words that are quite violent, it shows the reader the potential that the speaker has, and almost allows the reader to see a glimpse of the hatred that the speaker has felt from those who have attacked them.
The structure of Mckay’s original poem is set in the structure of a typical Shakespearian sonnet, with the 14 lines being split into 3 quatrains and a final rhyming couplet finishing the poem. I found this ironic, as Shakespearean sonnets are usually written with the theme of love being the overwhelming theme throughout. However, in Mckay’s poem the overwhelming tone of the poem is angry and hateful; this paradoxical use of a sonnet form in a poem about hatred shows more to the reader about the speaker, showing that they choose to remain loving despite being surrounded by hatred. This is one of the reasons that I chose to keep the form of the sonnet, as I wanted the voice of the speaker of the poem to remain loving, to show that despite anger seeming like the most prevalent emotion, it is much harder to remain loving to those who are opposing you. I also wanted to incorporate a strict rhyme scheme, with the scheme being ABABCDCDEFEFGG. I chose to do this because I wanted the rhythm of the poem to have a melodic quality, almost mirroring that of a chant at a protest, adding to the tone of solidarity.