9/11 + 10
Inside Television 569
Publication Date: 9-9-11
By: Hubert O’Hearn
I was sent an interesting poetry anthology this week, as much an historical artifact as it is a piece of literature, although many of the poems are very, very good. It is a re-issue of the 2002 first edition and is called Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets. I’m sure you can deduce the content from the title. One poem in particular stood out when I was composing my thoughts for this column. This is an excerpt from Nikki Moustaki’s How to Write a Poem After September 11th:
Don’t compare the planes to birds. Please.
Don’t call the windows eyes. We know they saw it coming.
We know they didn’t blink. Don’t say they were sentinels.
Say: we hated them then we loved them then they were gone.
Say: we miss them. Say: there’s a gap. Then, say something
About love. It’s always good in a poem to mention love.
This weekend, you’ll be hearing all of that - the bad cliches both verbal and visual, the loss, the hate, and everyone trying to find the Meaning of All This. As for love? Well, we can hope.
One does wonder why ten years after is so much more significant an anniversary than six, or nine or fourteen. To be brutally honest with you in losing argument with human nature, I don’t think that the tenth anniversary memorial of 9/11 is at all healthy. Let’s look at the counter-arguments.
The first word people bring up is closure. ‘We build this new tower and do these events so we can have closure.’ Well, closure on what exactly? Will a somber ceremony and an undoubtedly well-delivered speech by Barack Obama shrink the day-to-day hole felt by families who to this day will open a drawer and find some thing - a note, a watch, a ticket to a baseball game - that reminds the survivors of the one who didn’t survive? Would that human emotions could be so easily flipped from grief to happiness.
It certainly won’t supply closure to the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq, to which by the way U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced this week that troops would still be committed for the foreseeable future. That at least would mean that the mad rush to war triggered - quite literally - by 9/11 would be over. But that’s not going to happen.
Inside Television 569
Publication Date: 9-9-11
By: Hubert O’Hearn
I was sent an interesting poetry anthology this week, as much an historical artifact as it is a piece of literature, although many of the poems are very, very good. It is a re-issue of the 2002 first edition and is called Poetry After 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets. I’m sure you can deduce the content from the title. One poem in particular stood out when I was composing my thoughts for this column. This is an excerpt from Nikki Moustaki’s How to Write a Poem After September 11th:
Don’t compare the planes to birds. Please.
Don’t call the windows eyes. We know they saw it coming.
We know they didn’t blink. Don’t say they were sentinels.
Say: we hated them then we loved them then they were gone.
Say: we miss them. Say: there’s a gap. Then, say something
About love. It’s always good in a poem to mention love.
This weekend, you’ll be hearing all of that - the bad cliches both verbal and visual, the loss, the hate, and everyone trying to find the Meaning of All This. As for love? Well, we can hope.
One does wonder why ten years after is so much more significant an anniversary than six, or nine or fourteen. To be brutally honest with you in losing argument with human nature, I don’t think that the tenth anniversary memorial of 9/11 is at all healthy. Let’s look at the counter-arguments.
The first word people bring up is closure. ‘We build this new tower and do these events so we can have closure.’ Well, closure on what exactly? Will a somber ceremony and an undoubtedly well-delivered speech by Barack Obama shrink the day-to-day hole felt by families who to this day will open a drawer and find some thing - a note, a watch, a ticket to a baseball game - that reminds the survivors of the one who didn’t survive? Would that human emotions could be so easily flipped from grief to happiness.
It certainly won’t supply closure to the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq, to which by the way U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced this week that troops would still be committed for the foreseeable future. That at least would mean that the mad rush to war triggered - quite literally - by 9/11 would be over. But that’s not going to happen.
For the defense contractor, this shadow war against terrorism is the perfect war. No capitol to be seized, no generalissimo to sign the treaty, and a supply of enemies that will exist as long as there are those who demand and those who refuse, those who need and those with greed, those who are mad and those who are mad and those who are mad. It will never end until all the Allies have gone home and the U.S. Treasury is bankrupt.
You won’t be hearing much of that this weekend, unless you seek out the few journalists like Keith Olbermann who don’t mind telling the truth. No, you’ll see the ceremonies and the ten year old video and people will say noble things without the slightest intent of performing noble actions.
Am I being too cynical? I think it’s impossible frankly. Last week, the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg who I had thought of as one of the more progressive politicians in the U.S. announced that firefighters would not be able to attend the memorial service at Ground Zero. Not enough room. I see. Those guys who died ten years ago? They were heroes. You lot? Know your role and shut your mouth.
I’ll try and write you something happy next week. This week? No chance, in hell. Be seeing you.
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