Urban Poem

A detailed Summary of Urban Poem

For many, an urban environment is a city. One of significant size and importance. A place where many different cultures come together to live. When I think of urban, I think of an atmosphere with loud noises and large structures. A town taken up by buildings, apartments, houses and streets. A place packed with transportation and activities. Now we have a concrete image of an urban area, but can it also be intangible? Can it replicate the state of mind of a human being? I think so.

You can get a good idea of an urban city through not only the solid images, but through the emotions felt by one wandering through the city. Emotions such as pleasure, bewilderment, franticness and a sense of losing yourself in the city. These feelings depict an urban area just as much as a bridge hanging over the water. I think both extremities, the concrete images and the emotions felt there, are needed to get a better sense of an urban setting.

In the poem, "The Streets Crazy, Wild Tell Me Why" by Ernest Slyman, we see the city from both the visual standpoint and from the emotional one as well, showing us readers how this is undoubtedly a distinctly urban text. The descriptive landscape, noises, people, chaos, and emotions of the ma

The lines, "Along the dirty streets I moved /Through the tendrils of the city's heart" (Slyman) introduces us to the landscape of the city. The weather has done its job on the pavement, creating worn, grubby streets that twist and turn to support the city's core. Each street does its part in helping to maintain the city's equilibrium. Without the assistance of one street, the city could fall apart. The streets are also mentioned in the lines "I was the beaten down streets. My life was long and flat and hard." Here the streets are a metaphor for the man's life. They have been trampled on by a variety of people, just as the man's life has been. Another familiarity

between concrete and one's life is that it can be long and difficult. Therefore, the streets described in the text not only identify with an urban atmosphere, but of a man's life in it. When analyzing the Canadian War Museum, architect Raymond Moriyama describes how a building depicts an urban area. "At street level, the building's exterior responds to the site's dual personality. The eastern edge, with its wide views of the Parliamentary Precinct and Wellington Street, is urban and civic." (Moriyama). For those familiar with a city, a building is a recognizable structure. We get a larger view of an urban area when skyscrapers and bridges are mentioned. Because of their size, these type of concrete images give us a better understanding of the vastness of the city. In contrast, the line "I was the little girl skipping across Forty-seventh Street", emphasizes the detail of such a massive place. If you peer through the determined crowds, you could spot a little girl aimlessly prancing down the busy avenue. So when you look at a flock of people gathered on the streets, it may seem as if everyone has a purpose, but like the small girl, some do not. Other images of the landscape in the text, I imagined, because of the similar characteristics of that image to something else. For instance, the line, "The bright red thoughts in my head /Turning yellow and blue and green", reminded me of a stoplight. So the description of the man's thoughts, provided an image of a stoplight because of the similar traits between the two. Another reason I imagined that is because a city is rich in traffic lights. They play a major role in the city's landscape and life. Without them, the streets would be disorganized and fata

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1615
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English