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w. kozak
a literary magazine
issue three: nine-eleven
page seven
freedom from emotional paralysis
page eleven
poetry after 9/11: david ray
page thirteen
this is my story
page seventeen
works cited
page eighteen
acknowledgements
three
I
n the event of an delible images from 9/11, that of bodies
atrocity, the flood of emo- falling or jumping from the towers” (3212).
tions practically paralyses the body. The language is conversational, yet
The heart rate increases and the adrenaline precise and vivid, with a
surges, so that hypothetically we could revel
hint of innocent youth. Without any fluff, Hahn
in a few minutes of super hero power.
More often than not, however, when danger eloquently details the initial fear in the event of
calls, physically we feel [trapped]. Our a tragedy. The speaker’s tone is very straight-
hearts cry out, but our bodies remain stiff. foward, and the poem’s form is traditional, sim-
We want to scream, but the tongue may ply because the story speaks for itself. She
not formulate any decipherable consonants. carefully chooses descriptive words that work
When an unexpected disaster happens,
the general public stands witness, to illustrate a very real and detrimental ex-
stunned. perience for that young girl. The poem speaks
That’s why, as the Norton Anthology of American for all people who share a similar experience.
Literature puts it, “Many writers who wanted to
It is our human nature to need and to seek
respond in the immediate aftermath found them-
selves at a loss for words, unable to describe an outlet in order to understand and alleviate
what they and others saw and felt in the wake pain and suffering, in order to exit the moments
of an event that seemed beyond words” (3205). of emotional paralysis. It is a writer’s job, per-
Kimiko Hahn, an accomplished fe- haps his or her destiny, to act as a voice during
male poet from New York, was one of the unfortunate times for the rest of those who can-
writers who found the words. In her chill- not express their hearts in a creative fashion.
ing poem, “Her Very Eyes” Hahn was able
to describe this emotional pa- It is Literature, and all
ralysis in the wake of a tragic event. that is included within this frame--poetry, short
According to the anthology, the premise stories, fictitious novels--that compels human
of the poem “with its network of exchange beings, in the most comprehensive ways, to
between women - mother, daughter, and a express the matters of the heart. With “Her
‘friend’s sister’ - evokes one of the most in- Very Eyes,” Hahn supports this argument.
WHY WRITE?
Writers and readers gathering to remember American Novelist John Updike.
Saturday, January 8, 2010
10 am to 6 pm
David L. Lawrence Convention Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
“Why Write?”: a small essay from Updike’s collection, “Picked-Up Pieces”
Why write? As soon ask, why rivet? Because a number of personal accidents drifts us to-
ward the occupation of riveter, which preexists, and, most importantly,
the riveting gun exists, and we love it.
Think of a pencil. What a quiet, nimble, slender, and then stubby wonder-worker he is! At
his touch, worlds leap into being; a tiger with no danger, a steamroller with no weight,
a palace at no cost. All children are alive to the spell of pencil and crayons, of making
something, as it were, from nothing; a few children never move out from under this spell,
and try to become artists. I was once a rapturous child drawing at the dining-room table,
under a stained-glass chandelier that sat like a hat on the swollen orb of my excitement.
modernmyworld.com
modernmyworld.com is not a real website, nor a real business, as far as the creator of this magazine knows. if it were a real business, she would imagine it to be a place where people
can go to submit and get copyrights to new, innovative ideas about absolutely anything they come up with. creative writers would be one of this company’s target audience.
David Ray
I
n an article found in the book, Poetics To- of poetry’s “acquired purpose.” Maybe Ray is saying
day, Karen Alkalay-Gut studies the imme- that poetry’s purpose has not changed, and instead,
diate growth of “testimonial and elegiac poetry has the ability to change the comprehension
poetry” after 9/11. of history. Here is how I’ve come to this:
Entitled “The Poetry of September 11: The Tes- First, Ray references two historical literary writers:
timonial Imperative,” the article begins with an Leo Tolstoy and Walter Benjamin. It should not be
abstract summary of the author’s purpose. The ignored that Tolstoy is the author of two fiction mas-
summary references American poet Lawrence terpieces, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, both of
Ferlinghetti’s classification of poetry as “’B.S. and which represent the peak of realist fiction, and are a
A.S.’—Before and After September 11” (257). major influence in both literature and society--thus,
In the article, Alkala-Gut notices that since literature changing history. To further understand
9/11, lamenting testimonials “Almost immediately after the ter- Ray’s use of historical icons,
in the form of poetry have be-
rorist attacks of September 11, I researched Walter Benja-
come quite popular and valued min. Wikipedia identifies
amongst society. As a result, 2001, on the World Trade Center him as a literary critic whose
she says, “poetry has acquired (WTC) and the Pentagon, poems primary argument was that
a long lost social purpose—to began to surface in public places “logical philosophic rea-
order, inform, unite, and con-
and public forums.”–Alkalay-Gut soning cannot account for
sole a confused and grieving people” (257). all experience, especially not for self-representation
David Ray became part of poetry’s immedi- via art.” In other words, you cannot explain the act
ate surge after 9/11 when he wrote “Six Months of self-expression through art, or in this case, poetry,
After.” According to the Norton Anthology of and you should not try to understand it. Combin-
American Literature, the poem “meditates on ing what I learned about Benjamin with the stanza
the wreckage catastrophe leaves behind and the of which he is placed, Ray could be referring to po-
efforts of 9/11 workers who dealt with debris” etry after 9/11 when he writes, “the pile/of debris
(3215). growing/skyward” and then again, at the very end,
With a quick glance, Alkalay-Gut might catego- with “Some say the debris/also speaks.” He uses the
rize Ray’s poem as one that’s “aquired [that] long noun debris because it’s chaotic and difficult to un-
lost social purpose...” derstand, just as Benjamin says art, or poetry, cannot
But, with a closer look, is it truly evident that be logically reasoned.
the poem is merely informing, uniting, and con- Taking all I’ve learned thus far and trying to con-
soling a confused and grieving people? Is it re- nect it to the stories of “Tony the fireman” and the
ally only about Tony the fireman and the man “man with an axe,” I found that these men could
with an axe? represent the people that Alkala-Gut is examining-
-the people who turned to poetry as a form of self-
Or could it be that Ray wrote this poem to con-
expression for the first time in their lives after 9/11.
vey a larger message--not about the wreckage left
Ray is saying that the men’s stories, or the people’s
on ground zero--but rather, about the effects that poems, must be heard, or read, to understand history.
literature will have on the history 9/11? Through Ray suggests that the explosion of poetry after 9/11
an analysis of the historical references within is the result of the experiences people had, and those
the poem, perhaps “Six Months After” could be works of art, those poems, will shape history, his-
viewed as a rebuttal to Alkalay-Gut’s definition tory will not shape poetry.
This is what it means
to understand history,
Tolstoy: We never go
far enough, just credit
the latest Napoleon
with the damage.
Walter Benjamin:
one single catastrophe
which keeps piling up
wreckage . . . the pile
of debris growing
skyward.
1-800-SQUINT-FREE
www.glasses4me.com
THIS IS
MY STORY of September 11
11, 2001
With the help of a journal response that I wrote on September 13,
this is how I remember, in detail, September 11, 2001:
I
was in my 6th grade English classroom, and it was manded to turn on the news, no one took him seriously.
morning. It was the beginning of the school year, and Mr. Q said something like, “You know I’m
the atmosphere of the class was exciting and new. not allowed, what’s up?” to which Billy whis-
My young, good-looking teacher, Mr. John Q, ruled that pered something that none of us could make out. “Mr.
each student sit next to someone different every day. Q’s jaw dropped and he looked really scared,” was how I
He lived by “The Golden Rule”—do unto others as you described Mr. Q’s initial reaction in my response journal.
would have them do unto you—and wanted no one to Mr. Q turned to us and said, “Do you all feel you
feel left out or discriminated. That day, I got to sit next are mature enough to watch a devas-
to Ali—one of my best friends to this day tating event that just took
who I still believe is almost as funny place in our country?”
as me. I was also directly across My mind immediately began
from the boy I had been “going sorting through the possibilities
out with” since the start of the of what could have happened.
school year. It had been about I remember thinking, Bush was
two weeks; we were pretty serious. shot! followed by, No, it’s a massive
We had just begun the lesson tornado! And even though I was deathly
plan for that day, which was to discuss some ancient afraid of murderers and tornadoes, I was not scared. In-
short story we were assigned to read the night before. stead, I felt incredibly curious and excited. I was smil-
I remember, just before we opened our books, Mr. Q ing and laughing. The whole class was giddy. We liked
openly admitted that what we were about to read would finding things out, especially if it meant we got to watch
be a waste of time, and followed with an apology. TV and abandon our books. I didn’t really care what
Suddenly, the janitor (and our teacher’s cousin) was happening, merely because I couldn’t understand.
Billy Q, flung himself into our classroom. He mut- I remember watching the second plane crash
tered, “Johnny, put on the news,” with a into the South Tower. I don’t recall feeling sad, just
panicked voice. I was used to Billy Q barging in like confused. I didn’t understand why it was such a “dev-
this. New Castle, my hometown, is full of people astating event.” I thought, can’t they just fix the dam-
who believe they’re full-blooded Italian, just be- age? And when both towers crumbled to the ground,
cause their great-great-grandfather came over on a I thought, can’t they just build two more? The idea of
ship from Italy 100 years ago. Billy Q is one of those thousands of lives being crushed and torn into pieces at
people, and at the time, I was, too. So when he de- that very moment never crossed my mind. As an 11-year-
old girl, my mind wasn’t developed enough to draw didn’t even bother asking for fear of being called annoy-
any real conclusions from what my eyes were seeing. ing. But to my surprise, he tapped my shoulder and said,
That day, students started getting notes from the “Tay, terrorists from the middle east
office that their parents were there to pick them up. Every hijacked some planes and killed thou-
time an office runner would knock on the door, the class sands of Americans because they had
would play a guessing game to find out who it’d be this time: something to say.” I asked, “What did they have
“I bet it’s you!” “No way, my mom’s not that weird!” I re- to say?” And he said, “I don’t know, but does
member referring to kids going home early as “so stupid!” it really matter?” Meanwhile my mom was driv-
Lunchtime rolled around and the cafeteria filled ing and sobbing and I was more concerned for whether
with 300+ of us sixth graders who were abnormally en- or not we’d get home safely, so I stopped talking, and the
thusiastic because we didn’t have to do any schoolwork car was disturbingly silent for the remainder of the drive.
that day. The principles were calling names over the mi- My mom asked us all to stay home from
crophone, and one-by-one me and my classmates watched school the next day and I happily obeyed. At that
and laughed at the students who were going home. point, I was sure of two things: thousands of peo-
I was the first of my table to be called over the ple were dead, and I was supposed to be scared.
microphone. In disbelief, I walked up to Principle Retort After learning more about the “plant in
as if he had called me up for some favor. He pointed Pittsburgh,” I was somewhat frightened. But I
to the EXIT sign, which hung directly over the head of was still able to go on with my days, complete-
my mother. When my eyes met with hers, her expres- ly forgetting about it and being a happy little kid.
sion changed from terrified to devastated, and I could On Thursday, the 13th, Mr. Q start-
tell she was trying her best to hold back from sobbing. ed the school day by assigning us to write a one-
I walked over to her, and without a word, she fol- page journal response to the following question:
lowed me to my classroom where I grabbed my book What do you know about September
bag and we went to the car. As soon as I shut the door I 11, and how does it make you feel?
said, “I don’t get it. Why are you here?” She opened her The first half of my response outlined the events that went
mouth to talk and instead she began to cry like I had nev- on in my life on September 11—which is just what I’ve told
er seen before. She had her arms around me, and I was you. I dedicated the second half to explaining my feelings:
at the stage in my life where touching my mother felt
I feel like I’m supposed to be scared because
awkward, so I backed away and said “What’s wrong?”
She could barely speak and I recall feeling somewhat my mom and sisters say they are. I’m not re-
superior to her in that moment, as if she was the child ally scared, though. I feel safe with my dad and
who needed consoling. Once she caught her breath, she my brother because they don’t seem afraid of
said: “There’s a plant in Pittsburgh. If the terrorists. I am worried that the plant in
Pittsburgh will be hit by the terrorists. If that
they hit the plant, we will all be
dead.” Still puzzled, I turned my eyes to the wind-
happens, we will all die. Knowing this makes me
shield, buckled my seatbelt, and we went on our way
to pick up my sisters and brother from the high school. scared for everyone in this classroom because I
The car ride from the high school to my house really like my class and I don’t want sixth grade
went something like this: I asked the sister closest to me to end until June. Yesterday and Tuesday I felt
in age, LaDare—13 at the time—if she knew what was excited because I wanted to know more about
going on. She said, “Sort of, but not really.”
what is going on. But today I just want to
I then asked my know-it-all sister, Bryana—then 15—if
she had any idea. With attitude, she said something like, forget about it and learn more stuff. I wish it
“Of course I know. You’re too young to didn’t happen but it did and we can’t change it.
understand, so stop asking.” All who was left I want my mom to stop worrying.
was my then intimidating 17-year-old brother Sammy. I -Taylor Servedio, age 20
Works Cited
Whitehead, Alfred North. “Expression.” Modes of Thought,. New York: Macmillan,
1938. 28-57. Print.
Baym, Nina. “Writing in a Time of Terror: September 11, 2001.” The Norton
Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. E. New York: W.W. Norton,
2007. 3205-219. Print.
“Why Write? by John Updike.” 1975. Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak out on the
Power of the Word. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: HarperStudio, 2009. Print.
acknowledgements
All of my credit for this project goes to all who
were affected by the terrorist attacks of Sep-
tember 11, 2001. This includes all who lost
their own lives or the life of a loved one, all who
were witnesses at the scene, all who fought and
risked their own lives to save others, and all
who expressed themselves through writing. I
acknowledge my mother for influencing me to
write at a very young age—without her, I would
not have created this project. Finally, I recog-
nize and appreciate the writers who contribut-
ed to and influenced the remembrance of 9/11.