Tuesday, July 11, 2017

What is an analysis of "Why Whales Are Back in New York City"?

This poem, in the poet’s own words, is a “love song to [his] community”.
The poem opens with a detailed description of whales who have returned to Queens a century after being driven out by pollution and sewage that was dumped into their water. The poem then goes on to describe government employees violently removing migrants from Liberty Avenue (an allusion to the Indian and Indo-Caribbean communities who live there, as well as to the Bill of Rights) to deport them. This violence gives way to a description of the strong spirit and celebrations of culture that the poet feels and observes in his community. The poem goes into small personal details of the his experiences living in New York under threat of government “bullies.” The poet tells us that even if white supremacy tries to “send back” these people, they will never “keep us out”: this community will still “beat our drums wild.” This spirit of resistance continues to the final stanza, which circles back and cements the theme of the poem: just like the whales, the “black and brown hands” whose culture is reviled and oppressed will leap again, like the whales from the water who are “silhouetted against the Manhattan skyline.”
I’ve attached a link to a news article about ICE raids on Liberty Avenue which the poet refers to. This will give further insight into the historical context of the poem.
https://poets.org/poem/why-whales-are-back-new-york-city

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