#poemsofnewyork

[travelwithrave]

New York Skyline from the Empire State Building at Sunset -

Poems of New York: I bought a collection of poems about New York when I was there. I've never really been into poems, perhaps because I had not found the need to read them outside of Lit class.

It's taken me some time to understand the theme behind some of these poems in the collection. After reading online analyses of a couple of Herman Melville and Walt Whitman poems, I wonder why I hadn't thought of breaking them down the way some poem aficionados online have done!

It's been an enjoyable process reading and understanding the motive behind these poems. In any case, the one I like best in the curation so far is a pretty straightforward one and requires no online searches 😂 The imagery is astounding and strikes a raw nerve with me:

The Taxi - Amy Lowell          

When I go away from you The world beats dead Like a slackened drum. I call out for you against the jutted stars And shout into the ridges of the wind. Streets coming fast, One after the other, Wedge you away from me, ANd the lamps of the city prick my eyes So that I can no longer see your face. Why should I leave you, To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

[myeyesinnewyork]

Letter to N.Y.

In your next letter I wish you’d say where you are going and what are you doing; how are the plays, and after the plays what other pleasures you’re pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night, driving as if to save your soul where the road goes round and round the park and the mere glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green standing alone in a big black caves and suddenly you’re in a different place where everything’s seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can’t catch, like dirty words rubbed off a slate, and the songs are loud but somehow dim and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house to the gray sidewalk, the watered street, one side of the building rises with the sun like a glistening field of wheat.

–Wheat, nor oats, dear. I’m afraid if it’s wheat it’s none of your sowing, nevertheless I’d like to know what you are doing and where you are going.

-Elizabeth Bishop