I dream of one day visiting New York. It is a city I have grown up knowing but only through books and the television.

I read J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye in 1998. I was sixteen years old. That was the moment that tipped me over the edge. I wanted to walk in Central Park, I wanted to stay in some old hotel, I wanted to to walk the streets and see the sights and hear the noises just as Holden did.

It is my dream to arrive in this city with my new book under my arm and a list of places that want to see me and my new book.

Here is one of my favorite poems by Ross Clark:

To Behold a City

It must be a city that you have never visited before, and

you should be tired from driving all night. arrive with the

dawn, and watch it wake.

Watch the city’s first-rising

inhabitants as they go about their habitual duties: Milkmen

are finishing their runs through the suburbs: owners opt small

shops are sweeping their footpaths, smoking their last un-

hurried cigarette of the day: trucks are revving and cough-

ing their loads towards city streets: joggers are filling

their lungs with the airs of morning; night-workers are

returning home on the first buses.

the radio station, when

you find it, is playing brightly: the first light glints on

windows and displays, on the frost of the last lawns; a

tardy neon flashes cheaply over bunting.

this is the way to

know a city, to watch it wake like a new lover beside you.