‘America’ by Claude McKay is an interesting poem that brings out its theme by using metaphors and personification. The diction used in the poem is also eye catching; communicating more than what meets the eye. Generally, the poem takes readers through strong emotions of attachment and hate, while at the same time magnifying the issues in the society. This poem can be considered a standard sonnet, which is made up of a couplet and three quatrains that have been written in the iambic pentameter. It features the English traditional rhyming scheme. McKay ferries us forth and back between intense negative and positive feelings of the American societal norms.
The poem’s rhyme scheme is abab; eded; efef; gg.