Sep 12·edited Sep 12Liked by Sally Thomas, Steve Knepper, Joseph Bottum
I really like the way sound works in this poem. Green-ginger-tangerines-grape, pears-prize-parish: this catches vividly the sound of someone yelling out the names of the fruit they are selling. I suspect that he would pronounce the first syllable of bananas and that of tangerines also with much closer vowels than I would. In the second stanza, you get much less of this as you move away from that world into the more sophisticated internal world of the poet. Window-laden-dewy dawns-benediction is a beautiful effect, but feels much more deliberate. In the last stanza, there is no alliteration at all (although some beautiful assonances [gaze-wave-ways]).
Every time I read a poem by Claude McKay, I think: I need to read more McKay. This one is new to me and very lovely.
Beautiful.
I was born and raised in the tropics, and immigrated to the US as a college student. This poem made me feel all the feels today. Thanks for sharing.
I never was captured by a poem from the Harlem Renaissance before. But this is beautiful.
Losing the last stanza of the would be sonnet due to tears is a beautiful ending for the piece.
I really like the way sound works in this poem. Green-ginger-tangerines-grape, pears-prize-parish: this catches vividly the sound of someone yelling out the names of the fruit they are selling. I suspect that he would pronounce the first syllable of bananas and that of tangerines also with much closer vowels than I would. In the second stanza, you get much less of this as you move away from that world into the more sophisticated internal world of the poet. Window-laden-dewy dawns-benediction is a beautiful effect, but feels much more deliberate. In the last stanza, there is no alliteration at all (although some beautiful assonances [gaze-wave-ways]).
I also wonder if he has just been reading Lawrence's Piano (https://poemsancientandmodern.substack.com/p/todays-poem-piano).