DECEMBER 2010

w. kozak

a literary magazine
issue three: nine-eleven

“It is in literature that the concrete

outlook of humanity receives its expression.”
Alfred North Whitehead
page three
creative literature: an essential of life

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
T he tragic events of September
11, 2001 have created memo-
ries for millions
of people across the
world, memories they’ll
hold onto until the day
they die. Most people
recall exactly where
they were, what they
saw, how they felt and
how they reacted on
that day. The innate desire for humans
to express themselves causes people
to talk about their 9/11 experience
with families and friends, keeping it
fresh in their minds for years to come.
But imagine if
that’s all there was.
Imagine a world where every-
one talked, but no one took it upon
themselves to write down their ex-
perience. A story’s survival would
depend solely on word-of-mouth.
Without a written copy, how
would the true essence of a
story live on—through a paint-
ing, musical score, or sculpture?
It’s true that paintings are a strong
art form of self-expression for both the
creator and the admirer. But how many
times have you looked at a painting
and wondered, “What’s the story be-
hind this?” And if you look, you’ll almost
always find a text sur-
rounding that question.
So, is there any form of
art other than creative
literature that has the
same influence and ef-
fectiveness to tell a story
and express the mind?
Alfred North Whitehead, an influen-
tial philosopher of logic once said:
“It is in literature that the con-
crete outlook of humanity receives
its expression.”
In other words, literature is the most
comprehensive means to expressing
the human mind. Whether it be a novel
or a poem, each word in a piece of
literature is carefully and purposefully
chosen, and comes straight from
the mind, abandoning all material
things, and relying solely on words
to express thought and emotion.
And we need to express thought.
We need to satisfy our natural desire
to release the abundance of emotions
that flow through us each day.
 In his book of lectures, Modes of
Thought, Whitehead further explains
our disposition for self-expression:
“Expression is the diffusion, in the
environment, of something initially
entertained in the experience of the
expressor. No conscious determi-
nation is necessarily involved; only
the impulse to diffuse. This urge
is one of the simplest characteris-
tics of animal nature. It is the most
fundamental evidence of our pre-
supposition of the world without.”
It is through reading and writing that
humans “diffuse.” We can look at a paint-
ing, listen to an instrumental, and study a
sculpture, but none of these art forms pos-
sess the power that literature does to con-
vey the “concrete outlook of humanity.”
Therefore, since literature is the most
credible source for unwinding, it is re-
lied on most during times of intense
emotion. Specifically, during times of
distress, people turn to literature as a
stepping stone in the healing process,
whether it’s through reading or writing.
Hence, when an atrocity occurs, it is
to no surprise that literature becomes
the primary foundation to recovery.
The catastrophic dealings of
September 11 created a swarm
of new emotional experiences for
millions of people. We were over-
come with anger, sympathy, con-
fusion and disgust, and with these
intense emotions came the desire
to speak out, to share stories, and
to articulate ideas and opinions.
Thus, with a natural ability to ex-
plain those universal emotions in
words, creative writers across the na-
tion turned to their pens and papers
and wrote. They wrote to express
themselves and the minds of their
readers. And as a result, creative
writing will forever be the source to
understanding the true outlook of
humanity on the attacks of 9/11.
By Taylor Servedio, 20
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 “Her Very Eyes”
By Kimiko Hahn

A friend’s sister, my daughter reports,

cannot close her eyes,
and I interrupt, it must be asbestos irritation—
until she adds,
she sees bodies falling from the sky,
she sees bodies breaking through the glass atrium
or smashing onto the pavement,
she sees one woman, her skirt billowing out like a
manikin’s,
and a suited man plunging headfirst,
And she hears them land in front of her
but cannot turn away when she closes her eyes.
And she doesn’t know what to do.
This is what my daughter reports
upon coming home from school
last Tuesday.
 from emotional paralysis
by Taylor Servedio, 20
I
n the event of an
atrocity, the flood of emo-
tions practically paralyses the body.
The heart rate increases and the adrenaline
surges, so that hypothetically we could revel
in a few minutes of super hero power.
More often than not, however, when danger
calls, physically we feel [trapped]. Our
hearts cry out, but our bodies remain stiff.
We want to scream, but the tongue may
not formulate any decipherable consonants.
When an unexpected disaster happens,
the general public stands witness,
stunned.
That’s why, as the Norton Anthology of American
Literature puts it, “Many writers who wanted to
respond in the immediate aftermath found them-
selves at a loss for words, unable to describe
what they and others saw and felt in the wake
of an event that seemed beyond words” (3205).
Kimiko Hahn, an accomplished fe-
male poet from New York, was one of the
writers who found the words. In her chill-
ing poem, “Her Very Eyes” Hahn was able
to describe this emotional pa-
ralysis in the wake of a tragic event.
According to the anthology, the premise
of the poem “with its network of exchange
between women - mother, daughter, and a
‘friend’s sister’ - evokes one of the most in-
delible images from 9/11, that of bodies
falling or jumping from the towers” (3212).
The language is conversational, yet
precise and vivid, with a
hint of innocent youth. Without any fluff, Hahn
eloquently details the initial fear in the event of
a tragedy. The speaker’s tone is very straight-
foward, and the poem’s form is traditional, sim-
ply because the story speaks for itself. She
carefully chooses descriptive words that work
to illustrate a very real and detrimental ex-
perience for that young girl. The poem speaks
for all people who share a similar experience.
It is our human nature to need and to seek
an outlet in order to understand and alleviate
pain and suffering, in order to exit the moments
of emotional paralysis. It is a writer’s job, per-
haps his or her destiny, to act as a voice during
unfortunate times for the rest of those who can-
not express their hearts in a creative fashion.
It is Literature, and all
that is included within this frame--poetry, short
stories, fictitious novels--that compels human
beings, in the most comprehensive ways, to
express the matters of the heart. With “Her
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.

“We all see a piece

of history,” said Tony
the fireman, no longer
a boy on probation.
--“It was raining bodies,”
said another, holding
an axe, “I found
a foot encased
in the rubble.”

This man with an axe

and a helmet rubbed tears
from his eyes, and that
is what it means
to understand history,
although there is also
the scream and the shriek,
the drumbeat of bodies

striking the roof.

Some say the debris
also speaks.
twelve
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squinting?
here’s my card.
IF YOU’RE GOING BLIND, DON’T DENY IT.
GET SOME GLASSES YOU OLD DOG, YOU.

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
morning. It was the beginning of the school year, and
the atmosphere of the class was exciting and new.
My young, good-looking teacher, Mr. John Q, ruled that
each student sit next to someone different every day.
He lived by “The Golden Rule”—do unto others as you
would have them do unto you—and wanted no one to
feel left out or discriminated. That day, I got to sit next
to Ali—one of my best friends to this day
who I still believe is almost as funny
as me. I was also directly across
from the boy I had been “going
out with” since the start of the
school year. It had been about
two weeks; we were pretty serious.
We had just begun the lesson
plan for that day, which was to discuss some ancient
short story we were assigned to read the night before.
I remember, just before we opened our books, Mr. Q
openly admitted that what we were about to read would
be a waste of time, and followed with an apology.
Suddenly, the janitor (and our teacher’s cousin)
Billy Q, flung himself into our classroom. He mut-
tered, “Johnny, put on the news,” with a
panicked voice. I was used to Billy Q barging in like
this. New Castle, my hometown, is full of people
who believe they’re full-blooded Italian, just be-
cause their great-great-grandfather came over on a
ship from Italy 100 years ago. Billy Q is one of those
people, and at the time, I was, too. So when he de-
manded to turn on the news, no one took him seriously.
Mr. Q said something like, “You know I’m
not allowed, what’s up?” to which Billy whis-
pered something that none of us could make out. “Mr.
Q’s jaw dropped and he looked really scared,” was how I
described Mr. Q’s initial reaction in my response journal.
Mr. Q turned to us and said, “Do you all feel you
are mature enough to watch a devas-
tating event that just took
place in our country?”
My mind immediately began
sorting through the possibilities
of what could have happened.
I remember thinking, Bush was
shot! followed by, No, it’s a massive
tornado! And even though I was deathly
afraid of murderers and tornadoes, I was not scared. In-
stead, I felt incredibly curious and excited. I was smil-
ing and laughing. The whole class was giddy. We liked
finding things out, especially if it meant we got to watch
TV and abandon our books. I didn’t really care what
was happening, merely because I couldn’t understand.
I remember watching the second plane crash
into the South Tower. I don’t recall feeling sad, just
confused. I didn’t understand why it was such a “dev-
astating event.” I thought, can’t they just fix the dam-
age? And when both towers crumbled to the ground,
I thought, can’t they just build two more? The idea of
thousands of lives being crushed and torn into pieces at
that very moment never crossed my mind. As an 11-year-
old girl, my mind wasn’t developed enough to draw
any real conclusions from what my eyes were seeing.
That day, students started getting notes from the
office that their parents were there to pick them up. Every
time an office runner would knock on the door, the class
would play a guessing game to find out who it’d be this time:
“I bet it’s you!” “No way, my mom’s not that weird!” I re-
member referring to kids going home early as “so stupid!”
Lunchtime rolled around and the cafeteria filled
with 300+ of us sixth graders who were abnormally en-
thusiastic because we didn’t have to do any schoolwork
that day. The principles were calling names over the mi-
crophone, and one-by-one me and my classmates watched
and laughed at the students who were going home.
I was the first of my table to be called over the
microphone. In disbelief, I walked up to Principle Retort
as if he had called me up for some favor. He pointed
to the EXIT sign, which hung directly over the head of
my mother. When my eyes met with hers, her expres-
sion changed from terrified to devastated, and I could
tell she was trying her best to hold back from sobbing.
I walked over to her, and without a word, she fol-
lowed me to my classroom where I grabbed my book
bag and we went to the car. As soon as I shut the door I
said, “I don’t get it. Why are you here?” She opened her
mouth to talk and instead she began to cry like I had nev-
er seen before. She had her arms around me, and I was
at the stage in my life where touching my mother felt
awkward, so I backed away and said “What’s wrong?”
She could barely speak and I recall feeling somewhat
superior to her in that moment, as if she was the child
who needed consoling. Once she caught her breath, she
said: “There’s a plant in Pittsburgh. If
they hit the plant, we will all be
dead.” Still puzzled, I turned my eyes to the wind-
shield, buckled my seatbelt, and we went on our way
to pick up my sisters and brother from the high school.
The car ride from the high school to my house
went something like this: I asked the sister closest to me
in age, LaDare—13 at the time—if she knew what was
going on. She said, “Sort of, but not really.”
I then asked my know-it-all sister, Bryana—then 15—if
she had any idea. With attitude, she said something like,
“Of course I know. You’re too young to
understand, so stop asking.” All who was left
was my then intimidating 17-year-old brother Sammy. I
didn’t even bother asking for fear of being called annoy-
ing. But to my surprise, he tapped my shoulder and said,
“Tay, terrorists from the middle east
hijacked some planes and killed thou-
sands of Americans because they had
something to say.” I asked, “What did they have
to say?” And he said, “I don’t know, but does
it really matter?” Meanwhile my mom was driv-
ing and sobbing and I was more concerned for whether
or not we’d get home safely, so I stopped talking, and the
car was disturbingly silent for the remainder of the drive.
My mom asked us all to stay home from
school the next day and I happily obeyed. At that
point, I was sure of two things: thousands of peo-
ple were dead, and I was supposed to be scared.
After learning more about the “plant in
Pittsburgh,” I was somewhat frightened. But I
was still able to go on with my days, complete-
ly forgetting about it and being a happy little kid.
On Thursday, the 13th, Mr. Q start-
ed the school day by assigning us to write a one-
page journal response to the following question:
What do you know about September
11, and how does it make you feel?
The first half of my response outlined the events that went
on in my life on September 11—which is just what I’ve told
you. I dedicated the second half to explaining my feelings:
I feel like I’m supposed to be scared because
my mom and sisters say they are. I’m not re-
ally scared, though. I feel safe with my dad and
my brother because they don’t seem afraid of
the terrorists. I am worried that the plant in
Pittsburgh will be hit by the terrorists. If that
happens, we will all die. Knowing this makes me
scared for everyone in this classroom because I
really like my class and I don’t want sixth grade
to end until June. Yesterday and Tuesday I felt
excited because I wanted to know more about
what is going on. But today I just want to
forget about it and learn more stuff. I wish it
didn’t happen but it did and we can’t change it.
I want my mom to stop worrying.
-Taylor Servedio, age 20
 Works Cited
Whitehead, Alfred North. “Expression.” Modes of Thought,. New York: Macmillan,
1938. 28-57. Print.

Alkalay-Gut, Karen. “The Poetry of September 11: The Testimonial Imperative.”

Poetics Today. 2nd ed. Vol. 26. Duke UP, 2005. 257-79. 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.

taylor servedio - december 14, 2010