"The New Colossus"

Any Good Poem

Richard Berlin, MD, shares “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus.

The “old” Colossus was the Colossus of Rhodes a gigantic 100 foot high bronze statue of the sun god Helios which stood by the harbor of Rhodes in 280 BCE. Rhodes was then one of the most important trading ports in the ancient Mediterranean and the statue was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The “New Colossus” is the Statue of Liberty.

Lazarus was a descendant of Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the United States from Portugal around the time of the American Revolution. Emma was born in New York City in 1849 to a very wealthy family. Before Lazarus, Jewish poets in the United States only published humor and hymnals. Lazarus’ book Songs of a Semite was the first collection of poetry to explore Jewish-American identity.

In August, 1883, a year before the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty's pedestal was laid, a fundraiser for the pedestal's construction solicited art and literary works for auction; 34-year-old Lazarus donated a poem for the occasion, which she titled "The New Colossus."

Devoted to the plight of Jewish immigrants, Lazarus imagined that the statue would become a symbol of hope for all Ellis Island arrivals. She wrote her verse 3 years before the statue was completed, and only 4 years before her own death. The poem was essentially forgotten for 20 years, after which Lazarus' friends lobbied to have it emblazoned on a bronze plaque and hung in the museum inside the Statue’s pedestal. From there, it went on to define not just the monument but also our country's immigration policy for more than 100 years.

Dr Berlin has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 27 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is an instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.