In the early aftermath of whatever struck you about 9/11, the life math itself action replayed mind-numbingly. The body count, the bangs through the buildings, and the private and public aches of a stunned America. And the united colors of breathless TV studios. Shedding nationalistic heat on a moment that may have needed some light and a balm instead.
One had to take a deep breath and find other ways of seeing.
Thus, poetry.
Wislawa Szymborska
At that time, much of the poetry I read vacillated between American school assignments in cathartic mode to quick-fire book-length poems; all of them, of course, having their own coming-to-terms story. And then there was Wislawa Szymborksa's poem PHOTOGRAPH FROM SEPTEMBER 11.
'They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower
The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth..'
Wislawa Szymborksa. I did not know this Polish 1996 Nobel Laureate until then. She had continued to study underground during World War II, written early paeans to socialist ideology under Stalin, and later grew estranged from the political establishment. Czeslaw Milosz, the other Polish poetic giant of her time (whose birth centenary falls this year), was an important early influence. I realized that war and death and violence spoke through her in precise, hurting ways. With a retrospective clarity that did not lose heart or sight of the life gone.
So I returned to this poem. Again.
'..There's enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets..'
She had sensed that collectively stunned stab of the bizarre — with and beyond the looping 9/11 images on TV.
For me, her words were the poetic equivalent of shutting my ears. Filtering the aerial soundtrack outside. Yanking me, elegantly, out of the emotional deep-freeze of the moment. And it returned the dead to their human fullness.
'I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight…'
With these confidently burdened lines, she also froze 9/11 into a timeless vertigo zone.
A zero has since been added to the first anniversary.
Going through the more distant tragic mid-airness of that quietly hurting poem, now - I've embedded it with a range of visual politics.
Some of what has moved, dislocated, politicized, worsened, opened up, shut down and been created in the ten years hence. Here's a train that starts from Wislawa's words and attempts a dislocating cluedo with it. Get off anywhere and the least you might find is an update. Of thoughts and knots.
9/11 incinerated and implicated America in many ways. Some of those ways speak via Wislawa via these weblinks. Given these post 9/11 times, suitably called hyperlinks.
Although what has also opened up for those who have self-reflected anywhere post 9/11 is a palpable spirit of collaboration. This is my imagined one with Wislawa. It's called Foto /11.
P.S. Wislawa - Is PHOTOGRAPH FROM SEPTEMBER 11 2.0 allowed, given its lack of literary merit?
(Hear the full audio version of Wislawa Szymborska's poem "PHOTOGRAPH FROM SEPTEMBER 11" here)
PHOTOGRAPH FROM SEPTEMBER 11 2.0 ?They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.
The photograph halted them in life, (nine-eleven-writers)
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth. (photo)
Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.
There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets. (photo)
They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened. (Filmlink) (Research on post 9/11 learnings)
I can do only two things for them— (Opinion)
describe this flight (photo)
and not add a last line.
—Wislawa Szymborska (Translated by Clare Kavanagh and Stanisław Baranczak)