Towards a Collective Memorial: American Poetry After the Attacks on the World Trade Center, NYC
Abstract
The destruction of the World Trade Center buildings during
the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 have been used in poems
written in response to the attacks by various poets as a means of
coming to terms with the events. The poems discussed in this article
may be regarded not only as a way of documenting the events but also
as a way of creating commemorative spaces. By means of reproducing
the striking visual images of the attacks, especially those broadcasted
on television, the poems seem to illustrate multi-voiced responses to
the attacks and provide a space for commemoration as alternatives to
the physical memorials like Reflecting Absence and One World Trade
Center. In other words, the poems share similar characteristics to
monuments and create a medium for healing from the trauma. The aim
of this article is to study the poetic responses to the collapsing of the
World Trade Center buildings and the ways in which the buildings are
symbolically rebuilt in the lines of poetry as an act of commemoration.
Keywords
September 11, 2001, American Poetry and September 11 Attacks, Poetic Memorialization, Word-monument, Poetic Monument, Digital Poetry
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