Most often, poems that discuss about a specific place, work in such a way to portray the essence of that area by focusing on the small details that makes it unique. but sometimes, the details affect the voice of the poem; hence, the poem becomes more about how the place influences someone. This is demonstrated well in the poem, Awaking in New York, written by Maya Angelou. As a poetry writer myself, it is actually one of my favorite poems for many reasons but for this assignment, it beautifully portrays how the nature of a “place” can have multiple implications. In this poem, the narrator views that wherever she is within New York City is dragging her down.
The poem has 11 lines full of imagery. At a first glance, the readers immediately get the idea that it is referring to someone waking up in the morning somewhere in New York City. The poem is told in the first person which allows to the readers to either identify the narrator as female or male. In the first two lines, the imagery of “curtains forcing their will…against the wind,” describes how loud the sound of the wind makes as it moves the curtains. This is also a metaphor to show the inner feelings of the narrator-maybe he/she feels as it there’s too much chaos around them. This idea is followed through with the lines, “I, an alarm, awake as a rumor of war.” Here, the simile compares the narrator to an alarm which indicates that he/she perhaps have a routine-waking up is thus one of them. For people that live in New York, they can identify with this because it’s a place of “hustle and bustle” and people are always on the go so everyone has a routine. Not everyone finds this way of living to be a “damper” but in this poem, the narrator definitely expresses he/she negative feelings. This is seen particularly with the lines, “The city drags itself awake on subway straps.” This line has such a negative and heavy tone to it and it comes across as if the narrator is dreading the idea of starting yet another busy day.
Overall, this poem may be really short but unlike other pieces that deal with place or some region, it uses the busy “New York City” to describe more than just the place. Instead, the readers see how the narrator feels trapped by being in this place and although the poem is about being in New York, Maya Angelou definitely voices how the narrator is affected by the city. Like I have previously mentioned, not everyone views this city in this way but for many people that do live here, there are concepts within this poem that they can definitely relate to(e.g.loud, fast paced, busy city).
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178945
(For some reason the link won’t work when you click on it so just copy and paste it into a tab to get to the poem!)