![]() ![]() ![]() These streets will make you feel brand new In their song “Empire State of Mind”, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys sing: ![]() ![]() The one poem most closely linked to the city’s history as a heaven for newcomers is probably Emma Lazarus’ famous poem “The New Colossus”, which names the city the “Mother of Exiles”. On the other hand, however, there are also many literary and musical works that seek to capture some of New York’s intrinsic hopefulness and candour. In her poem “Awakening in New York”, Maya Angelou likens the metropolis to a bleak battlefield, when she writes that “he city drags itself awake on subway straps and I, an alarm, awake as a rumor of war, lie stretching into dawn, unasked and unheeded.” And WH Auden, likewise, describes the city merely as a temporary collection point that offers no place for any of the people who come to the city in order to seek refuge. Walt Whitman appeals to the city as a living, and breathing symbol of “infinite, teeming, mocking life”. There is probably not a single city in the world, that is subject to more love and more hatred than New York. Constructing a City with Words: Multi-perspective Story-building in Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York ![]()
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