The Arts in NYC Fall 2012

Join this site

If you want to add yourself as a user, please log in, using your existing Macaulay Eportfolio account.

Site menu:

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

Art Around the City

October 2012
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  

RSS New York Times Arts Section

Reading through some poetry today, I thought of you guys.

So I decided I’d post a particular poem that stood out to me, entitled Mannahatta, by the famed Walt Whitman.

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.

Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane,
unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and
steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender,
strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining
islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters,
the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model’d,
The down-town streets, the jobbers’ houses of business, the
houses of business of the ship-merchants and money-
brokers, the river-streets,
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,
The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses,
the brown-faced sailors,
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft,
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the
river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide,
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form’d,
beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,
Trottoirs throng’d, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows,
A million people—manners free and superb—open voices—
hospitality—the most courageous and friendly young men,
City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!
City nested in bays! my city!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

One Comment

  1. Comment from profeversley      Reply
    Time October 16, 2012 at 3:05 pm

    It’s a great poem, like his “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” And of course, Allen Ginsberg sees Whitman as his poetic ancestor.

Write a comment