Who wrote this poem? Professor Nohrnberg? It is a skillful, but curiously impersonal monody: the "angels" are beautifully rendered, but what about the demons who murdered them? It's like Lycidas without the corrupt clergy. Perhaps the poet didn't know anyone who died on 9/11 and perhaps this is one reason why he could write a poem on the subject at all. For those of us who were not so fortunate(seven people I knew perished), the thought of approaching the subject poetically is just not possible. Rather, when I think of these lost souls, I find myself traversing the darkwood with Una and the Redcrosse Knight, caught in the sharp meditative ray that makes this canto seem to spring right out of Spenser's mind. (How fortunate we are to have Milton to goad us and Spenser to hone our senses forcibly!) The angels I see at the locus amoenus we gingerly approach, however, are no Raphaels, be sure of that. Neither am I a cooing, all-forgiving dove. Poetry of consolation without confrontation is like a rosebush without thorns: nice, but hardly realistic. Still, my sincere thanks to the poet for having had the fortitude to write and share his effort with us. It is also nice to have an academic invoke "9/11" with genuine respect instead of using it as a springboard to criticize U.S. foreign policy or trivialize the offenses of the fanatics behind the attacks.
EK
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