Edith Wharton

Herman Melville

Emma Lazarus

Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another. Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.

Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.

In the volumes of this series we take a look through the prism of individual regions of the United States through the centuries and decades.

The United States may be many things: the world’s policeman, a bully, a shameless purveyor of mass market culture but it also, in its better moments, a standard bearer for truth, transparency, equality and the more positive qualities of democracy.

Little wonder that’s its poets are rightly acknowledged as wonders of their art. Leading lights in the fight against slavery and for equality, even if the rest of the Nation is finding it problematic to catch up. 

In this volume we have collected verse from poets born in one of the most famous cities in the World: New York. Within its five boroughs are a small universe of wonder and magic, a kaleidoscope of almost everything the planet has to offer. In past times New York was a gateway to a new land and a new future whatever the misery and tragedy of your former life. Of course, this golden vision was not attained by everyone. But our local poets, including such luminaries as Emma Lazarus, Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, Alice Duer Miller, and Alan Seeger bring vision and truth to this unrivalled city and its hallowed status in the world of verse.