The poem I chose for this digital project is called Man and Nature in New York and Kansas, by Martha Baird. After reading this poem several times, I liked it more and more every time I read it. At first, I didn’t think this poem would be very positive in relation to New York City because it starts out talking about how the nature the author sees in Kansas in the wheat fields there, and how if you’ve never seen them then “you’re missing something.” This poem changes it tone a little in the second half when it begins to talk about New York. In this changed view, it begins talking about how, if you haven’t seen the way the sunlight falls on the tall New York City buildings and makes them look “rosy,” you’re missing out.
What I liked most about this poem was that it was almost contradicting itself. I had one thought about the poem while I read the first half and then got a completely different vibe from it when I read the other half of the poem. What my thesis would be in this digital paper is that the author is trying to make a connection between man’s creations and nature’s creations and that the two work hand in hand somehow. I’m still trying to clarify that last part on how the two work hand in hand, but I definitely want to have that aspect of nature and man working together as part of my thesis.
There is a part of the poem in which the author mentions a location on the western corner of Lexington and 57th street and I definitely would include that in the digital portion of the essay.