New York City is known for being the ‘city that never sleeps’, but eventually all cities will have to turn off their lights. In Maya Angelou's’ poem, “Awaking in New York”, she is describing a person who is feeling disengaged from life, even what is arguably the most exciting place to be in the United States-- New York. The narrator has a turbulent past, perhaps they wish to return to a state of innocence, and feels useless within this big, bustling city state New York. Angelou immediately uses imagery to engage the audience. She somberly refers to the “curtains forcing their will against the wind” (Angelou 1-2). These two lines are a strategic method used to portray the loud bellowing of the wind as it blows into a room and waves the curtains. …show more content…
An interesting word that the narrator deliberately chose was “alarm” (8). Alarms are a piece of technology, typically with no association with emotional connection, but in this case Angelou uses the word alarm to explain that the narrator feels empty and void of positive emotion. When the narrator compares herself to a “rumor of war”, which reflects the past conflict in life that the narrator has experienced: that a person is now the product of difficult times. Those “wars” have created the void discusses in the prior line. There is also another reference within “Awakening in New York” to children sleeping. The lines read, “... exchanging dreams with seraphim…” (4-5). While the children dream of seraphim, which are fairies like those described in the Old Testament, the narrator does not describe himself or herself with the same happy regard. Fairies are associated with childish, happy thoughts, while an alarm and crashing curtains represent an opposing feeling of sadness and hopelessness; the world of the narrator. Perhaps Angelou is explaining that the “I” voice wishes to return to the innocence that is often connected with being a