Claude McKay

If I had to choose a favorite poet, I think I would pick McKay. Simply because I have read his work before and I am familiar with it. But doesn't everyone do that? Say they "love" things they are familiar with? Anyway, McKay is one of those poets that brings about a sense of familiarity as well as dignity.
McKay writes with words that actually mean something. He writes with words that evoke joy as well as sadness. His poem, If We Must Die, is one of the most infuriating poems to me, for this poem was written as he is talking about his past, when slavery was a popular thing that happened in America. This poem was written in response to the riots and wars that had just finished in 1919.

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

"Dying, but fighting back," words that show perseverance as well as respect for those who have fought for their freedom as well as others freedom. McKay's shows a lot in his poems by simply choosing words that have a great impact on the reader.