New York City is a place where creatives flock in order to make their mark. With its magnificent bridges and towering skyscrapers, who wouldn’t draw inspiration from the city that never sleeps? We’d like to share with you a few poems in which NYC has been highlighted. Enjoy!
“My Sad Self” – Allen Ginsberg
“on Fifth Ave below which I also bear in mind,
its ant cars, little yellow taxis, men
walking the size of specks of wool”
Read the full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49307/my-sad-self
“Walk about the Subway Station” – Charles Reznikoff
“Walk about the subway station
in a grove of steel pillars”
Read the full poem here: https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/walk-about-subway-station
“Dawn in New York” – Claude McKay
“The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan’s roofs and spires and cheerless domes!”
Read the full poem here: http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=370
“On Broadway” – Claude McKay
“The rainbow lights of Broadway blaze
All gay without, all glad within”
Read the full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44695/on-broadway
“February Evening in New York City” – Denise Levertov
“As the stores close, a winter light
opens air to iris blue,
glint of frost through the smoke
grains of mica, salt of the sidewalk.”
Read the full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42535/february-evening-in-new-york
“The New Colossus” – Emma Lazarus
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch,”
Read the full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus
“Gamin” – Frank O’Hara
“All the roofs are wet
and underneath smoke
that piles softly in
streets, tongues are
on top of each other
mulling over the night.”
Read the full poem here: https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2007%252F06%252F27.html
“Let Me Please Looking into my Window” – Gerald Stern
“Let me please look into my window on 103rd Street one more time—
without crying, without tearing the satin, without touching
the white face, without straightening the tie or crumpling the flower.”
Read the full poem here: https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2014%252F04%252F04.html
“On Mother’s Day” – Grace Paley
“In those days in the afternoon I floated
by ferry to Hoboken or Staten Island
then pushed the babies in their carriages
along the river wall observing Manhattan
See Manhattan I cried New York!”
Read the full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48319/on-mothers-day
“Second Generation: New York” – Langston Hughes
“Remember Third Avenue
And the el trains overhead,
And our one window sill geranium
Blooming red”
Read the full poem here: https://www.unz.com/print/CommonGround-1949q1-00047
“Manhattan” – Lola Ridge
“Out of the night you burn, Manhattan,
In a vesture of gold –
Span of innumerable arcs,
Flaring and multiplying –
Gold at the uttermost circles fading
Into the tenderest hint of jade,”
Read the full poem here: http://www.ourdailyread.com/2018/10/poem-of-the-week-manhattan-by-lola-ridge/
“Union Square” – Sara Teasdale
“With the man I love who loves me not,
I walked in the street-lamps' flare;
We watched the world go home that night
In a flood through Union Square.”
Read the full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46011/union-square
“Mannahatta” – Walt Whitman
“City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!
City nested in bays! my city!”
Read the full poem here: https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1881/poems/271
