The Tropics in New York

“The Tropics in New York” is a poem that deals in marked contrasts, in climate, locale, and time. The speaker is likely an immigrant to the United States, or at least someone who has been living there for a while. However, apart from the hint in the poem’s title, this is not immediately apparent, as the poem unfolds gradually. Stanza 1 presents a series of images of exotic fruit without explanation. Only in the last line does the speaker hint at what these images call up in his mind. He thinks of “parish fairs” (Line 4), suggesting perhaps that he is familiar with rural life, where such items might be entered in a contest and eligible to win a prize.

Stanza 2, however, changes the mood and imagined setting. Line 1 states, “Set in the window,” and it becomes apparent that the fruit described in the first stanza is a display in a store window. The speaker is walking down a street in New York City (a city that the poet McKay knew well), and the window display catches his attention. The effect is immediate and far-reaching. He is taken back in memory to a place he knew intimately earlier in his life, where such fruits were found in abundance in their natural setting.