Compare "Epitaph" by Dennis Scott to "The Lynching" by Claude Mckay.

Both Dennis Scott's "Epitaph" and and Claude McKay's "The Lynching" are short poems that describe a lynching. Both of them examine the horrific events of the lynching and focus on the body of the person who was killed. Both of them also describe the crowd and mention the women and children that are involved in/complicit in the killing, and both of them make allusions to other stories or events. Each of these poems asks the reader to confront the horrors of racism and racial violence, although the emphasis and the final image that they leave the reader with are different.
Both poems describe the body of the dead person in a cruel juxtaposition of a horrific sight happening on a beautiful sunny day. "Epitaph" describes the "clement morning" (line 1) with "falling sunlight" (line 2) while the body swings "like a black apostrophe to pain" (line 3). "The Lynching" describes the "ghastly body swaying in the sun" (line 10) and the bright star that shines over it at night (line 5).
Both poems focus on the crowd—specifically, the women and children who watch the event. "Epitaph" mentions the "women's breathing" (lines 2–3) and the children who "hushed their hopscotch joy" (line 4–5). "The Lynching" mentions the women who "thronged to look" (line 11) and the little boys who "danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee" (line 14).
Both poems also include famous allusions. "Epitaph" says that the body "hung there sweet and low" (line 6), which could be an allusion to the lyrics of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is a traditional black American spiritual, and it is often considered a coded song talking about the Underground Railroad. "The Lynching" says that "His father, by the cruelest way of pain, / Had bidden him to his bosom once again; / The awful sin remained still unforgiven" (lines 2–4). This could be interpreted as an allusion to the Bible and the story of Jesus's crucifixion. According to Christian belief, the crucifixion was supposed to be a sacrifice that Jesus made for the forgiveness of the sins of mankind, but this poem makes it clear that the lynching gives no such redemption.
The poems differ in their final messages to the readers, although both are bitter and condemn these actions. In its final lines, "Epitaph" emphasizes how the history of slavery and lynchings haunts the history of the Caribbean islands and "punctuate(s) our island tale" (line 10). The final thought expresses how the past of slavery and racial tensions lurks in the background of people's consciousness but also passes away and becomes something that people try to ignore. "The Lynching" instead focuses on the participation of the white people and the "fiendish glee" (line 14) that they take in lynching. The participation in "The Lynching" is more direct, but both poems emphasize the destructive nature of either contributing to or complying with racial hate.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56983/the-lynching