POETRY AFTER 9/11: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEW YORK POETS
Ed. by Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians
"O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometimes sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God." - Hart Crane
Despite its distinguished pedigree - commemorating the achievements of
athletes, the deaths of schoolmates, the triumphs of heads of state - occasional
verse doesn’t enjoy much of a reputation today. We tend to roll our eyes at
the odes composed by poets laureate to celebrate inaugurations and royal
birthdays. For writers fighting to distinguish their trade from the black arts
of advertising and propaganda, sincerity has become the chief virtue of what it
means to be literary. And sincerity is divorced from public speech.
At first glance, Poetry After 9/11 may seem similarly tainted. But this would
be a mistake. The events of September 11, 2001, and in particular the
destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City, only provide a context
for the poetry. The poems show the influence of 9/11, but often indirectly.
Though similar in form to most contemporary poetry - the short, free verse lyric
is still the dominant form - it is their occasional quality and their
relationship to public events that open them from the inside.
There are two reasons, aside from the quality of the writing itself, why such
an anthology works. In the first place there is the very public nature of the
events the poetry responds to. Much of today’s poetry is characterized either
by the banality of its anecdotal thought and observations or the obscurity of
its personal references. That self-oriented, confessional impulse is still going
strong here (Alicia Ostriker is moved to ask "do they hate me"?), but the events of 9/11 also give these poems a public, tangible
frame of reference. That these events were experienced, in large part, through
the lens of television is the second reason they are so effective. Poetry is
made out of images, and it has often seemed to me that poetry is better suited
to the modern mind because of this. Exploding planes and falling towers, all to
the fragmented rhythms of MTV, are more a part of the vernacular than prose
narrative.
Of course the reason they are more a part of the vernacular is because of the
dominance of the image in our culture. That a number of these poems make
references to CNN or Hollywood only confirms this. In David Trinidad’s
"Adam and Eve on the Hollywood Treadmill" the images are drawn
directly from film culture: "Think Faye Dunaway . . . Think Kate Winslet .
. . Think inexplicable pop phenomenon Celine Dion" (some idea of just how
free the verse is can be measured by reading that last line aloud). Another poem,
"Mortal Remains" by Kimiko Hahn, begins with the connection between
one of the victims and John Travolta "hustling his ass off" in Saturday
Night Fever. "Freedom is the capacity to remember that it’s a
movie," Geoffrey O’Brien writes in his sonnet "Techniques of Mass
Persuasion." But this kind of freedom is a drug, Eliot’s world of
might-have-beens. We can always change the channel.
While broadly similar in form, the poems vary quite a bit in rhythm and tone,
from breathless rattling pieces by Eliot Katz and Norman Stock, to playful
chains by Anna Rabinowitz and Paul Violi, to broken elegies by Jean Valentine
and Rachel Hadas. What they share is a need for something, in Kimiko Hahn’s
phrase, "More immortal than the movies." Hart Crane found in the
Brooklyn Bridge a form of architecture that stood for what he labeled a
"Myth of America." For these New York poets the great architectural
symbol of the World Trade Center is another postmodern present absence.
Instead of a bridge or a tower there’s a hole in the sky. Instead of religion
(those "bygones of bearded beliefs") there is a skepticism called
freedom. As Katz’s movers put it, "The world has changed, bro."
Notes:
Review first published online September 11, 2002.
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