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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NEW YEAR'S EVE, by DAVID IGNATOW Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I sit here glad, glad of my comfort and so somber Last Line: With the helplessness of the newborn. Subject(s): Holidays; New Year; Solitude; Wind; Loneliness | |||
I sit here glad, glad of my comfort and so somber that there is a wind for which I have no wise words. And as it has no thoughts of its own neither have the trees nor the people. There are no wisecracks for such kinds of thoughtlessness. And so I am fond of the wind as of any thoughtless person, safe from either, with nothing to say to one or the other, as I would have nothing to say to throngs on 42nd Street, streaming in and out of subways and theaters, they neither able to make great decisions in their person nor to act decisively on the world, and so, between these two conflicting and frustrated needs, decide finally to end up as theatergoers. I, seated in comfort at home, still hearing the wind, make no allusion to criticism, knowing what the wind means for us all. We will be blown out of this world, with talk on our lips. We will be blown away and we will have others in our place who will try just as hard to make sense, to talk straight and bitter, sarcastic and penetrating and end up tossed like leaves upon the ocean of wind and carried seaward with the helplessness of the newborn. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN ABEYANCE by DENISE LEVERTOV IN A VACANT HOUSE by PHILIP LEVINE SUNDAY ALONE IN A FIFTH FLOOR APARTMENT, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS by WILLIAM MATTHEWS SILENCE LIKE COOL SAND by PAT MORA |
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