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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claude McKay
Claude McKay
Claude McKay was born in Jamaica, West Indies, in 1889. He was...
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FURTHER READING
Poems about Fruit
Tender Buttons [Apple]
by Gertrude Stein, read by Ann Lauterbach
A Short History of the Apple
by Dorianne Laux
An Apple Gathering
by Christina Rossetti
Apples
by Grace Schulman
Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm
by Carl Phillips
Basket of Figs
by Ellen Bass
Goblin Market
by Christina Rossetti
Orchard
by H. D.
Pear Tree
by H. D.
Recuerdo
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Pomegranate
by Eavan Boland
To a Poor Old Woman
by William Carlos Williams
White Apples
by Donald Hall
Poems about New York
A Man Meets a Woman in the Street
by Randall Jarrell
City That Does Not Sleep
by Federico García Lorca
Cityscape 1
by Pablo Medina
In the Village
by Derek Walcott
Meditations in an Emergency
by Frank O'Hara
New York Notes
by Harvey Shapiro
Nothing Stays Put
by Amy Clampitt
Old Coat
by Liam Rector
Public Transportation
by Elaine Sexton
Summer Night, Riverside
by Sara Teasdale
The Lower East Side of Manhattan
by Victor Hernández Cruz
The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus
To Brooklyn Bridge
by Hart Crane
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The Tropics of New York  
by Claude McKay

Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root
     Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
     Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Sat in the window, bringing memories
     of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical skies
     In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;
     A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways
     I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.



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Used by permission of The Archives of Claude McKay, Carl Cowl, Administrator.
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