‘Awaking in New York’ was written by the astound Maya Angelo. Written on a dull backdrop of what seems to be a rising sun on buildings, my initial reaction to reading this poem is, “it’s about waking up in New York City, and the routine that people working and the living in New York City experiences” but, after reading the poem and analyzing it I realize the meaning underneath the surface that it portrays is much deeper than that. In a somber and what one may describe as a depressing tone, this poem explains the lonely and depressing feeling that people feel from routine and from lack of control in their life. “Curtains forcing their wills against the wind” (lines 1-2) shows the imagery of the curtain flowing as the wind blows. an innocent image it portrays, but what the speaker is actually speaking about I believe is the troubles of life pushing through as the “wind”, and the “curtain” as people is trying to fight against it but is failing.” I an alarm, awake as a rumor of war/ lie stretching into the sun unmasked and unneeded” (lines 8-11)  the comparison to an inanimate object, shows the lack of care the speaker has for himself or herself. the poem is written in the first person, because of the use of the letter “I”, which makes the poem more relatable to subway passengers who might feel that way, because there is no gender attached. I believe this poem shows the robotic life that people inhabit as they make a step into adulthood, the stripping away of innocence and simplicity of life that we normally have as children, is removed and we become a hard surface, lacking the love, and care that we used to have as children.

I found the poem “Note On Longing” by Tina Chang on the R train. When I first read it, I felt like I was watching a video. The words are like a video player that play the scene into my mind.  It was describing a peaceful night that a family was having a dinner together. The art that goes together with the poem shows a white towel with strips, a pair of green socks with some kind of patterns on it and a white towel with grid pattern are hanging on a red string on a very sunny day. This picture gives me a warm feeling which matches the feeling that the poem gives to me. But, I do not think the art is the best for the poem, because the poem is describing a scene which happens at night. This poem was chosen to be subway reading, I think it is  because the poem can make the subway rides more relax and make people feel like their simple peaceful life is the best. A peaceful after-rain night, duck meal, egg over rice, family dinner and sizzling flounder all makes people want to go home and feel less stress. The poem is exploring the beauty of life. The scene that the poem describes was the dream life that the speaker wants to have. It makes me want to cherish my life more. I think this poem is very easy to read. I can picture the scene very easily.

I found this poem on the R train, it is titles “Notes On Longing” by Tina Chang. I did come across this poem a few times and it was interesting to see that on the picture it shows a line of clothes hanged up like socks, towels, and what looks like a shirt. I guess when I saw the picture, I imagined the poem to be about clothing or something close to it. Reading the poem, it was confusing because the poet starts of the first two lines with describing the smell after it rain but then quickly jumps ship by saying “Duck bones, a wounded egg on rice” this line is what made the poem confusing to understand for me. The rest of the poem described a series of phased to go threw and in all that there is a family with a mom that brings food to the family. Over all I think the message of the poem shows that you have a family who is there for you to care for you and help you.

In searching for a poem for my blog post #1, I found a poem on the A train titled “Remembering Summer” by W.S. Merwin. My initial reaction to reading this poem was enlightenment at the thought that this poem was here to bring joy to the riders that happened to notice this great piece of literature. All the bright colors and fine lines that flowed around the poems white background was a real attention grabber, but still people just passed it by. I feel this particular poem was chosen for subway riders to read because it is calming and relatable for a New Yorker to long for the summer.

I feel the speaker is a fellow New Yorker, talking about his love of summer and longing for its arrival. This is supported when the speaker says “I can sit here now still listening to it, which is the final line of the poem. This supports the fact that he can still hear this sound that is so pleasant to him at the thought of summer.The poem explores a few themes such as love, Longing, and admiration. The themes are  supported when the speaker says only negative thing about winter and pleasant things about summer. I think this poem is accessible to the general reader because it does not make you think too much about the message. One of the questions I have about this poem is what was the purpose of adding the ninth line “the evenings with the hens still talking in the lane”. How does that line relate to the rest of the poem.
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I have came across many poems while riding the A train, but ” Remembering Summer” by W.S Merwin was the only one that really caught my attention and spoke to me.  While reading the poem I noticed there are no punctuation marks throughout the poem, I asked myself what is the speaker  trying to say or why is the poem written this way. The poem  makes a comparison between the season.  In the poem, it says ” in between is the best because you never give it a thought but it goes too fast ” ( lines 3-4)  the speaker is  referring to spring and how with spring the weather is in between not too cold or too warm. The poem is relatable because in new york, we experience different weathers, one day it might be cold, the next is hot and etc, and the speakers mentions how the seasons goes fast and how she can’t enjoy it.   Something else that caught my attention was the background picture that is being displayed. We see a leaf , with different colors and every color represent the season that the other is referring too, for example black, everyone knows winter marks the absence of color and the background displays black.  . ” the evening with the hens still talking in lane and the light getting longer in the valley (lines 9-10) But overall the poem is referring to summer how the weather is warm , the days are longer and the nights are shorter.

While riding the Lefferts Boulevard “A” express train I came across a poem called “Remembering Summer” written by W.S, Merwin and decided to use it for my Poetry in Motion Blog Post #1. This poem is definitely speaking about the summer and winter seasons because of the title “Remembering Summer”. My initial reaction to this poem was a feeling of warmth and uncertainty as to the speaker`s preferable season between summer and winter. This was because I interpreted the poem as the speaker describing how short the summer season is compared to winter. The poem starts off with “Being too warm the old lady said to me/ is better than being too cold” (lines 1-2). An old lady said to the speaker that she prefers to be too warm than too cold. The speaker says “I think now/ in between is the best because you never/ give it a thought but it goes by too fast/ I remember the winter how cold it got/ I could never get warm wherever I was/ but I don’t remember the summer heat like that/ only the long days the breathing of the trees”(lines 2-8 ). The speaker is saying that the summer is so brief that he/she can’t remember much about it, but the winter is so long that they can almost remember everything because of the difficulties of finding warmth. The speaker feels that if it was between warm and cold, they would be happier and would bring more pleasing memories. The theme of this poem can be the difference in temperature preference. The old lady prefers to be very warm than very cold, while the speaker prefers to be between warm and cold. I think that this poem was chosen for subway riders to get them to think deeper and dissect this poem and look at the true message that’s behind the poem; although it is about weather preference, when you look deeper, I think what the speaker is saying is that the good time such as warm summer days goes by so fast that we don’t even remember the heat that comes with it and because the winter last so long, we can definitely remember all of the days spent trying to remain warm, in other way, in life, one must learn to be in the moment and enjoy the good times for they go by so very fast, then we’re right back to dealing with the challenges and stress that life have to offer. A lot of people ride the subway to  and from many different settings, such as work, school, the hospital and once they get to that setting, they have to deal with so much and therefore that short period of time being in the subway, maybe they can be in the moment and try to have that piece and even meditate because the train ride goes by so fast and many times we forget our ride to school or work but remember the stressors we have to deal with once we’ve reached our destination and depart that train. I think this poem is accessible for general readers because I have googled it and have found it on various webpages. The only question I have about this poem is “Why didn’t the speaker spoke about other seasons such as fall and spring?”.