Dawn in New York By: Claude McKay

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Jenni King mod 1 even
Claude was the youngest of 11 children
 McKay's parents were farmers
 He began to write poems at the age of 10
 In 1906, he entered a trade school
 McKay eventually became an editor at The
Liberator
 McKay had moved to Morocco in 1930
 His financial situation forced him to return to the
United States in 1934
 In 1914 a financial gift from Jekyll enabled him to
move to New York, where he invested in a
restaurant and married his childhood sweetheart,

The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless
domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Almost the mighty city is asleep,
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.
But here and there a few cars groaning creep
Along, above, and underneath the street,
Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,
The women and the men of garish nights,
Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes
awry,
Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.
The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New
York.
And I go darkly-rebel to my work.
The meaning of this poem is someone
talking about the night time in New York. It
shows a lot of imagery by discussing how
the city of Manhattan lights up at night.
POV – 1st person
Tone – clam/relaxed
 “The Dawn! The Dawn!” – Repetition
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“My spirit to its spirit thrills” – Hyperbole
“the mighty city is asleep” – personification
“No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping
feet” – imagery
“garish nights” – imagery
“Their eyes wine-weakened” – hyperbole
“the strong electric lights”
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets
/m_r/mckay/life.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_McKa
y
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