The worldwide appeal of McKay’s “If We Must Die,” which Winston Churchill quoted in a speech against the Nazi during World War II, adequately demonstrates his literary value of him beyond his vehement condemnations of racial intolerance and injustice.
 Songs of Jamaica and contab ballads, two dialect poetry collections written by McKay when he was living in Jamaica, were well-read there. The poet recreated the folklore and rural lifestyle of his native country in a truly realistic vernacular. A sample selection of this dialect verse, as well as previously uncollected poems and a sizable number of Harlem shadows poems in standard English, are all included in the current edition, which has been painstakingly edited and comes with an introduction by scholar Joan R. Sherman.