The Tropics in New York is a poem by which author?

• A. Langston Hughes
• B. Claude McKay
• C. Maya Angelou
• D. James Weldon Johnson

Answer: (B)

This question tests author identification of a Harlem Renaissance poem that blends Caribbean imagery with urban life. The Tropics in New York is by Claude McKay, a Jamaican-born poet whose work often fuses lush tropical sensibilities with the experience of exile in American cities. In this poem, he contrasts the vivid, ripe imagery of the tropics—fruits, warmth, color—with the cold, impersonal reality of New York, expressing a poignant longing for home. That combination—diaspora experience expressed through tropical imagery and a sense of displacement in an urban setting—is a hallmark of McKay’s early 20th-century poetry and helps distinguish him from the other poets listed, whose notable works focus on different themes, styles, or periods.