Hi grasshopper,
An interesting meditative piece about an oh so difficult subject.
Over the last couple of days I've been pointed to a couple of websites that
seem to be referring to much the same image as you explore.
The first I read was an essay in The New Republic online that captures part
of what you make me see (and the photo - which the essay is about, which it
includes - is an image I won't forget). Here's the link:
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020909&s=diarist090902
But then there's the second at:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2002/09/11/forbidden_letters/index.html
("Forbidden thoughts about 9/11: The readers respond")
I found myself shocked to realise I could also respond to the quote: "I love
to watch the footage, over and over. I'm looking forward to the anniversary
just because the videos will be played again. People claim they don't like
to see the images, but I don't believe it for a second. I was sorry I missed
footage of people jumping, because you just don't see that too often and
that is rarely replayed.
-- Graphic Artist, 41, Chicago"
That the guy's a Graphic Artist as well is something I keep thinking about
too!
Perhaps, because I can't fully accept the reality of what tv shows me -
because I may be of an age where still photography, and words, impress me
more, and move me more - I can't yet work out what is real and what isn't. I
find I'm still comparing what I saw last year with films (and sometimes
feeling cheated when some of the original images, the powerful images,
aren't getting repeated). It's a sort of problem created by the high quality
of the original images, I guess. I sort of feel relieved I'm not the only
one who reacts like me (and that this guy's reacting far stronger, and is
being so honest!)
I also can't write "about" it! Perhaps, like you have done, I need to focus
down to one specific thing - if I can find one that I feel able to work
with.
I think I may have mentioned a year ago that Billy Collins (the US poet
laureate) said he wouldn't write about it - yet he now has! - But it's taken
him a year to produce the poem! How long will it take me to get started?
Will I ever?
Anyway, ruminations about what prompted you, or how I'm responding to what
prompted you, aside...
I feel, technically, with your poem I'm hearing lots of rhyme-sounds -
sometimes mid-line linking with end-line, sometimes two in one line,
sometimes with a line inbetween - and that makes me want to say "fire and
smoke" and not "smoke and fire." The rhyme/rhythm pattern I'm discovering
makes the concluding end-line rhymes - bear/air - work in a convincing,
conclusive, way.
I also wonder, because I don't yet feel enough about what happened, if the
words "with my guts lurching in empathy" are needed.
And "belch" sounds such a small word... (tho the image on the tv screen is
small, and the volume may be low, and someone who was there seeing and
hearing it all may want some bigger/louder kind of word.
Maybe I should have waited for a day or two, like I usually do, to let
myself think things at least twice, to let things coalesce a little more.
Bob



>From: grasshopper <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: For the fallen
>Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 01:04:08 +0100
>
>  Apologies in advance if this seems little more than personal therapy for
>me.....
>
>      For the fallen.
>
>After the day,
>they wouldn't show
>the falling ones
>on American television;
>something about not showing
>people near the instant of death.
>Something more
>about the giving up
>on life, a dereliction
>of hope, while rescuers
>struggled up towards them
>through smoke and fire.
>
>I watched it all that day
>beamed across the Atlantic,
>and those images remain -
>stronger than the belch
>of flame. the collapsing
>fabric of reality -
>the individual drops of flesh
>with my guts lurching
>in empathy.
>
>A digression, perhaps:
>A man took a photograph
>of people clinging to a ledge.
>He didn't blow it up until
>people begged him to do it.
>They wanted to see.
>They didn't want their feelings
>spared.They had enough feeling
>to spare. They wanted to know
>everything.
>
>Now we know
>that the fallen did not jump,
>that they were thrown off
>by fire, blown off by blast.
>Does it make the thought
>of their falling easier to bear -
>that they did not
>willingly embrace the air?
>
>                               grasshopper








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