820 The American Century: Literature since 1945September 11, 2001” (2001) by Aliki Barnstone (1962–), “September Ever After”
(2001) by Karl Elder (1964–), and “Dragons and Sharks” (2001) by Kelly Levan
(1974–). Commemorating the dead, Kinnell’s poem and all these others reveal how
closely woven the fabric of our lives is, at all times but especially at moments of
crisis. Even at the most apparently tranquil and intimate moments, war and the
horror and pity of war are not far away.
The elegiac, perhaps understandably, is in fact one of the forms most often
favored by those poets who have tried to write about 9/11. “It’s impossible to
understand it’s impossible,” writes Norman Stock (1974–) in “What I Said” (2002);
and, not being able to “understand” the crisis, many poets have felt compelled
simply to commemorate its consequences. “What can I tell you about history,” asks
Anne-Marie Levine (1979–) in “Four November 9ths” (2002), “ – history teaches.”
To which Shelley Stenhouse (1968–) in “Circling” (2002) adds the rider, “It’s so
strange to be caught / in history, to be making history.” Caught up in history, in
events that they find it difficult or even impossible to “tell you about,” many poets
feel that what they can do – and it is a great deal – is to honor the dead. So, Stenhouse
offers the simple statement, “Patti was a good person and she died.” Sometimes, the
commemorated death is that of a community. In “The Old Neighborhood” (2002),
for example, Andrea Carter Brown (1980–) pays tribute to the vanished vendors of
the World Trade Center in precise ethnic detail. “Where are they now?” she asks.
“And how?” At other times, the commemoration is intensely personal. In “She
Would Long” (2002), Jean Valentine (1934–) imagines the mother of a girl lost on
September 11, 2001 who yearns to “dig herself into the graveyard” with “her
daughter’s ashes / in her nose in her mouth.” Whatever the focus, however, there are
common feelings of loss and longing: a sense that everything has changed and,
quite often, the desperately articulated wish that it had not, that things could still
be the same.
“Oh how to piece together a life / from this scandal and confusion,” Harvey
Shapiro (1924–) declares in “Nights” (2002). “It’s we the living who must run for
cover.” And the “cover” frequently sought is that of commemorative measure:
measuring what has been lost, measuring the gap between before and after 9/11,
measuring the horror by meditating on an alternative history in which that horror
never happened. In “Grudges” (2002), Stephen Dunn (1939–) tries to measure the
loss. “Before you know it something’s over / ,” he reflects. “Suddenly someone’s
missing at the table.” So does Rachel Hadas (1948–) in “Sunday Afternoon” (2002).
For her, “recollection of what’s been lost” is enshrined in the relics left behind by
those who have vanished: “a mildewed quilt,” perhaps, or “a tattered T-shirt.” George
Murray (1971–), in “The Statue” (2002), in turn, reflects on the terrible logic of
things dictated by 9/11. “It was a good but rocky world / as recently as yesterday – ,”
he observes, adding with mordant irony, “it is there to see in all the papers of record.”
And Tim Suermondt (1960–), in “Squad I (2002), takes the measure of what might
have been: imagining a small boy playing at fireman in whose game “everyone was
saved / from the inferno,” all the firemen emerging from the Twin Towers with “small
birds on each / of their massive shoulders.” Another kind of consolation is soughtGGray_c05.indd 820ray_c 05 .indd 820 8 8/1/2011 7:31:47 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 47 PM