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Maurice Kenny, Poet Why I Went to NYC “As soon as I graduated from High School I took a Greyhound to New York City to become a rich and famous Broadway actor. My father gave me one year to accomplish this feat and I soon discovered that my age, height, and the fact that I was not as handsome as Wes Studi… I returned to North Country, leaving New York in utter despair and defeat. Wallowing in my disappointment eventually gave rise to the idea that I should enter college; however, the truth of the matter was that I always had the desire to. In college my writing tools became sharper, and I soon regained the courage to return to New York City to go to New York University. I became impressed by my instructors such as Louise Bogan and Donald Allen who taught me to rely on place and culture in my writing. And following their many instructions, my poetry began to take off with offers of publication. It’s silly now to say that New York is magical as it is without a doubt, and despite that I was still too short, and still did not look as handsome as Wes Studi, I found who I really was and what I really wanted to do with my life. New York City is exciting, and remarkable in it’s ability to attract youth while offering so many different opportunities. It is a blank canvas, an empty page for the artist to fill with images through the imagination; I look back and know that I would have missed out on so many things had I not taken a chance by getting on that Greyhound bus and stepping out onto 8th Avenue and 42nd Street. There are no regrets.”
The Steelworker In the hot Brooklyn night we stood at a bar drinking beer, and he said, “Riding the sky on stell girders solid under my feet, wind balances; beer tastes good after work in these neighborhood bars on Nevins St., but with all the big wages there is nothing to pray to here in the Brooklyn ghetto where my kids don’t know if they’re Black or Puerto Rican; too many bars on Nevins St., too many beers make me dizzy; I forget to sing and will slip one noon from those high steel girders.” And he took hold the shadowed hands of Wolf and Bear and Turtle. |
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