City That Never Sleeps

Shawkat M. Toorawa is Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at Cornell University. He has written, edited, and translated many books, including the collection of Adonis's poetry A Time Between Ashes and Roses: Poems.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsForewordAnne Pierson WisePrefaceShawkat M. ToorawaNew YorkValzhyna MortMORNINGAwaking in New YorkMaya AngelouDawn in New YorkClaude McKayNew York at SunriseAnna Hempstead BranchManhattan Dawn (1945)Donald JusticeFrom "A Grave for New York"Adonis (‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id)New York (Office and Denunciation)Federico García LorcaThe morningJames SchuylerEarly Morning in JulyCharles SimicSunday MorningKenneth McClaneWest Side StorySasha SkenderijaCycloneStephanie KruegerSonnet XXXVITed BerriganThe 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)Paul SimonThe Lower East Side of ManhattanVictor Hernández CruzDAYFrom "The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World"Galway KinnellFrom "As Fate Would Have It"Mahmoud DarwishA Step Away from ThemFrank O’HaraWhy I Hate New YorkMeredith ShepardAugust WalkLuis CabalquintoMade in India, Immigrant Song #3Purvi ShahResurrectionNicanor Parra"at the ferocious phenomenon"e. e. cummings I Had This Dream/the city of shadowsShokry EldalyRainDavid SemankiCentral ParkRobert LowellFrom "Peacocks on Broadway"Durs GrünbeinSummer Solstice, New York CitySharon OldsThe Mexican Cabdriver’s Poem for His Wife, Who Has Left HimMartín EspadaEVENINGThe New YorkersNikki GiovanniMacDougal StreetEdna St. Vincent MillayFrom "Mugging"Allen GinsbergFrom "New York"John HollanderFebruary Evening in New YorkDenise LevertovBody EliteAnne Pierson WieseSchubertianaTomas TranströmerWiseguy TypeHerman SpectorLatin Music in New YorkJessica HagedornBroadwayCarl SandburgA Rhyme about an Electrical Advertising SignVachel LindsaySeptember 1, 1939W. H. AudenTo Brooklyn BridgeHart Crane123rd Street RapWillie PerdomoNIGHTWhen I Heard at the Close at the Close of DayWalt WhitmanEvening on Fifth AvenueAnna MargolinStreet Lamps in Early SpringGwendolyn BennettFrom "New York American Spell, 2001"Tom SleighAutobiography: New YorkMelanie RehakSnowFay ChiangSeason of DeathEdwin RolfeFrom the Woolworth TowerSara Teasdale From "Twenty-One Love Poems"Adrienne RichGod Rest Ye Merry, GentlemenDerek Walcott Arriving in the CityFranz WrightCity LyricsNathaniel Parker WillisMaria’s JourneyAlberto O. CappasNew York at NightAmy LowellFrom "Desolation Row"Bob DylanTo New YorkLéopold Sédar SenghorJuke Box Love SongLangston HughesThese Ever Just So Six Million New York Hearts and DorothyRobert ClairmontFurther ReadingBiographical DetailsChronology of PoemsIndex of First LinesIndex of TitlesIndex of Poets

"Shawkat Toorawa has selected a thrilling chorus of voices, familiar and new, formal and slangy, immigrant and native. A perfect companion for your day or night on the town." — Robyn Creswell, poetry editor of The Paris Review"A strength of this collection is its rich mix of female and male poets, and its wide range of demographic, racial, linguistic, aesthetic, and other multicultural perspectives across a period of time ranging from the late nineteenth century to our own decade. The poems are as various and full of élan as the city itself." — Lisa Russ Spaar, editor of All That Mighty Heart: London Poems"There are almost as many anthologies of New York poems as there are skyscrapers, but in terms of sheer reading pleasure The City That Never Sleeps towers over them all." — Don Share, Editor, Poetry magazine