Perhaps at a first glance New York is not the greatest looking, but it just takes time to notice the good. An example is heavy rain, I always like to watch the heavy rain fall with a streetlight lamp behind it, the silhouettes and tone of colors is just... it just really looks nice. Have you noticed any great scenes the weather (or anything for that matter) can create in this city? (A blizzard, morning snow, slush, sunshine, sun after rain, or those weird pop-up thunderstorms that literally only drop rain on one block, etc.)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Remember that "February Evening In New York"?
I liked this poem the moment I read the title. That fact that I was born and raised in New York is irrelevant. I really enjoyed the admiring and creative descriptions of New York on a February evening. Examples: "A winter light / opens air to iris blue, / glint of frost through the smoke / grains of mica, salt sidewalk" pure genius, winter light opening to iris blue (perhaps her eyes or the sky), and the glints of frost/snow through the "smoke grains of mica salt sidewalk". "Feet pattern the streets / in hurry and stroll... a dance / to the compass points, out, four-way river. / Prospect of sky / wedged into avenues". Great metaphor's for the crowded street intersections of New York.
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I like the suggestion that the iris might be her own eye--the direct meeting of physical sight to what lies beyond the personal--suggesting an "opening" in many ways--an "objective" (to the extent that is possible) opening of the self to the other, for eg. So again, don't take things too literally--esp. considering the last lines of the poem. The city, in its ambiguity, tutors insight (which, ironically, leads us out of what is ususally assumed as the locus of that "in"). See also my comments on Farra's blog.
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