9/11 Poems

One defining feature of many of these 9/11 poems is anger, which is frankly somewhat upsetting to read since the poems, in that sense, don’t really provide you with a sense of collective loss or communion. Most of the poets here write about the tragedy in terms of cause, not the heavy, insufferable loss that followed. In this way they differ largely from “Lilacs.” But there are exceptions. The late Wislawa Szymborska’s poem, “Photograph from September 11,” asks some similar questions that Whitman raises in “Lilacs.” For instance, what can poetry do for the dead, and for the living, in the aftermath of a tragedy like the assassination of Lincoln or 9/11? How does one properly mourn the dead? “O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?” Whitman asks, while Szymborska decides to break off her poem in order to leave those that jumped from the towers floating. It’s the best that she can really do for them, she says.