East-Side: New York
An old Jew munches an apple,With conquering immersionAll the thwarted longings of his lifeUrge on his determined teeth.His face is hard and pear-shaped;His eyes are muddy capitulations;But his mouth is incongruous.Softly, slightly distended,Like that of a whistling girl,It is ingenuously hauntingAnd makes the rest of him a soiled, grey background.Hopes that lie within their graveOf submissive sternness,Have spilled their troubled ghosts upon this mouth,And a tortured beliefHas dwindled into tenderness upon it....He trudges off behind his push-cartAnd the Ghetto walks away with him.
Words in this poem
- ingenuously adv.
- In an ingenuous manner; openly; fairly; candidly; artlessly.
- sternness n.
- The quality or state of being stern.
- ghetto n.
- The Jews'quarter in an Italian town or city. [It.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
East-Side: New York is in the public domain. This text is taken from Advice: A Book of Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #60252; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Maxwell Bodenheim, East-Side: New York, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/east-side-new-york.html, id L23379.
Form and metre
East-Side: New York is 18 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| An old Jew munches an apple, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| With conquering immersion | 7 | ·/˘˘˘/˘ |
| All the thwarted longings of his life | 9 | ··/˘/˘··· |
| Urge on his determined teeth. | 8 | ···˘/˘˘· |
| His face is hard and pear-shaped; | 8 | ·······˘ |
| His eyes are muddy capitulations; | 10 | ···/˘˘·˘/˘ |
| But his mouth is incongruous. | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| Softly, slightly distended, | 7 | /˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Like that of a whistling girl, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| It is ingenuously haunting | 9 | ··˘/˘˘˘/˘ |
| And makes the rest of him a soiled, grey background. | 11 | ·········/· |
| Hopes that lie within their grave | 7 | ······· |
| Of submissive sternness, | 6 | ·˘/˘/˘ |
| Have spilled their troubled ghosts upon this mouth, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And a tortured belief | 7 | ··/˘˘˘/ |
| Has dwindled into tenderness upon it.... | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| He trudges off behind his push-cart | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| And the Ghetto walks away with him. | 9 | ··/˘·˘/·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.