A Place of Positivity New York - Essay Example

Regardless of these matters, the author looks at the city of New York with a mostly positive eye. It should be an interesting note that this poem of New York has a symbolic significance based on the events that happened after it was published as part of Edward Field's series of poems. The book, whose cover features a photograph taken from Ground Zero looking upward to an empty sky, is composed of two parts: twenty of his most recent poems, including the haunting, epic title-piece After the Fall, and a retrospective of his past work, chosen by the poet with all the heart-felt faith and mind-ridden doubt inevitable from such choices (Wolf, thevillager.com). The aftermath of the September 11, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York caught the attention of the world to a city that has been mortally wounded and driven to tragedy and chaos.

Generally, New York has been known to have a tumultuous environment; the city streets tend to have problems of vagrants and dense pollution. The author believes contrary to that sentiment and makes an interesting statement further on in his poem. The author makes a statement that those people who believe New York is such a dangerous place to be are just living in some icy wasteland and hardly pay attention to other people. It is later revealed. The first and second line of the fifth stanza say that “this vertical place is no more an accident / than the Himalayas are.

” This would be taken literally that the people who live in the Himalayas do not know what life is, other than the negative side in New York, and continue to suffer the troubles of harsh cold weather. The line can also have figurative meaning by saying that one cannot judge on the shortcomings of one’s home when there are also problems in another one’s own backyard. Every place in the world has its own problems to contend with. Regardless of the terrible events that happened, New York is a place full of movement and energy because of the people who inhabit the city.

This is comprehensively expressed in the sixth stanza in this manner: Nowhere else in the country do people  show just what they feel --  we don't put on any act.  Look at the way New Yorkers  walk down the street. It says,  I don't care. What nerve,  to dare to live their dreams or nightmares,  and no one bothers to look. The people of New York, in general and in the perspective of the author, are always driven and highly motivated individuals who keep the city with activity. The author says that this drive to move on for the people in New York can be found in their ambitions, their dreams, and, perhaps, even their personal tragedies.

After the WTC bombing of 9/11, it would seem that the city would have met its downfall. Instead of that, the city of New York continued to thrive. There is a vibrant pulse of life in the city that is similar to a teeming tropical forest. The author points this throughout the poem, but, perhaps, the best description of this imagery can be found in the tenth to the last lines of the last stanza: For me it is no different: out walking, my soul seeks its food.  It knows what it wants.  Instantly it recognizes its mate, our eyes meet,  and our beings exchange a vital energy,  the universe goes on Charge  and we pass by without holding.

The people in New York still continue to live their lives unhindered, even though tragedy struck it