reponse to Found Poem

The poem, “A Little Numb” really stuck out to me as I read it. I feel like this didn’t have to be just about someone who was trying to escape the towers before they collapsed. So many people felt the same way after the attacks, a little numb. Just after the attacks there were a lot of people that didn’t quite feel for anyone else around the world, just other Americans. A specific line that was repeated many times throughout this poem really stuck to me, “Keep moving.” In seems like the meaning of the term changes throughout the poem. At first it’s kind of like saying that you just have to keep moving forward so you can get through the day. It’s just another day and the more you keep moving the faster the day is over and you can go home. In fact everything just seems like a simple normal day until the planes hit and things change. After they hit “Keep Moving” doesn’t just mean keep moving to get through the day, it means to keep moving or you are going to die. I particularly liked the way that the poem was structured. It wasn’t one full sentence that just kept running on and it told the story in the form of what was going on in someone’s head as it was happening. Even the imagery stood out to me, it was a little disgusting and stomach turning when we see this squashed head with no body, but it makes it so much more real that way. She didn’t sugar coat it and try to make it seem like it wasn’t that bad. It was bad and it was horrific and she stuck to it. I liked the aspect of putting the time of day in there and I don’t know if it was intentional or not but there is no time from 8:44 till 3:08, it’s kind of as if time just disappeared as this great tragedy was happening. I felt as if time was the least important of all things going on at the time. Overall I think this poem was well put together, the story was well planned and the message was clear. Good Job

Blog 4 Response to Found Poems

Response to I fell Asleep with the TV on

The thing that I most liked about Lindsey’s poem is the fact that the poem achieves a dream like state. She really made the illusion that the event was unreal like when we have dreams. I have always felt that when hearing the news of September 11th that it was so surreal like the world of our dreams. Like many dreams they are non linear and never really seem to make sense. I felt like Lindsey did this in her poem because it covers the whole day of September 11th but only in moments that stand out in your mind. When I read the poem the first thing that comes to my mind is a person that’s world has just fallen down around because of this tragic event. I can only associate feeling and words such as these it have person ties, someone who worked near the site of the World Trade Center or possibly in the building itself. I draw this conclusion because the poem says “They came to my apartment…. My mother stayed with me… my jaw dropped”.

The poem also talks about how easily the pain can be felt when you are blindsided by a tragic event. In the poem there is a reference. I liked the reference to Pearl Harbor because it is only of the only previous national crisis’s that can come close to comparing to September 11th. It was another example of a direct attack on American soil that turned our world upside down. One of the similarities between Pearl Harbor and September 11th is that it put things in perspective for most Americans it brought things from the dream world to reality. As the poem says” we are all a little American… they also realized… they learned”. Both events reminded people things they had lost or let go of. It restored our American identity. It called the American people to think about what they really are and who they want to be. The only thing that I do not understand why does it always take a big climatic event to change? Why do not want to change before this point? What is the next event when we are going to go through this again? Everything is a cycle.

Lauren Epperson

The poem “Firefighters” by Lucas Wheeler was interesting in that certain words were highlighted by the way he ordered his lines. The poem highlighted the firefighters in New York who had immediately responded to the distress calls from the Twin Towers and also to those who had given their lives in the line of duty. The story he picked was obviously showcasing the talents and may have even been written by one of the firefighters from Westchester that had arrived as backup on the scene of devastation. I think it is nice that Lucas chose a piece on firefighters since they put not only their lives on the line to save others, but also put their all into their work even if it meant sacrificing themselves and emotionally crippling their families. One of the things I really liked was how he ended his poem because it placed a great emphasis on September 11^th and also leant itself to leaving the reader with a sense of purpose and tragedy. The spacing of the words in the poem gave it an aura of wistfulness and sorrow with a hint of hope and justice. Even though the poem is short and concise, the reader still receives the full message that Lucas was trying to get across: that all those who died in the September 11^th attacked should be remembered, especially those who were only doing their job as civil servants. I really liked the picture as well since it helped emphasize the importance and meaning that those firefighters who perished held in both their workplace and their families’ hearts. I also liked the fact that it was black and white, since it leant a sort of starkness to the whole image, and helped give the poem greater meaning in its few words. Overall, the reader is left with a sense of duty and honor even in the midst of a tragedy.

Response: What Made

One poem that really caught my attention was “What Made”, by Branden Stevens. The format, each line starting with “what made” was intriguing, and the fact that the entire poem consisted of questions was thought-provoking. This poem doesn’t just describe 9/11, it ponders the events that occurred on September 11 and the results. These are unanswerable questions, questions that people asked in the aftermath of the attacks and are still asking. Some of them don’t seem to need to be answered – for example, the penultimate line “What made this sudden yet apparent sense of American spirit that never existed before?” is questioning the surge of patriotism that swept the country after the attacks. Everyone accepted that the natural thing to do was to rally behind the country and wave the flag, instead of questioning why we should do this and what America did to provoke the attacks. The statement “What made the news rerun the footage repeatedly again as if they were the scenes of a bad car commercial?” reminded me of the media frenzy surrounding 9/11. For weeks, the newspaper and television was full of images of the place crashing into the World Trade Center, the Towers falling, the rubble, bodies. The event almost became a spectacle, something to entertain instead of a tragic event. This line just made me ponder the obsession we have with tragedy – the news is full of kidnappings and murder and horror, even where there isn’t a major even like 9/11. The line “What made our country increase security and make me feel so much safer?” made me ponder not why America increased security, but why it made me feel safer. What, really, has been done to protect us? As the final line says, “What makes us… think it couldn’t happen again?”

Blog 4

I enjoyed reading Briana’s poem. Her poem intrigued me because it described this man’s day at the office on September 11^th and how his day proceeded at first as just a normal day at work where he felt safe and content knowing that he and his family were safe. This was his reality until he heard someone in his office discussing how the World Trade Centers had been attacked. He couldn’t believe it at first and then rushed to his office to find on the internet that this terrible tragedy was true. This feeling of seeing this event happen but having it not really sink in and become a reality like this man experienced on this day, was an experience felt by most, if not all, Americans on this day. We were shocked to think that such a disaster like this could happen and happen out of the blue.

I really enjoyed reading Briana’s poem because it brings attention to the fact that this average American man was like so many Americans on this day. We couldn’t believe that it was true and when the reality of this event actually sunk down into our heads and we processed the information, we were scared to death. We ran to make sure that our families and everyone that we cared about was alright and safe. We speed dialed like crazy, sent e-mails, and scurried about frantic and in hysteria to make sure that everyone that we cared for was safe and sound and hadn’t been a part of this tragedy. But once we calmed down and figured out that everyone we cared for was okay or not okay, we came to the realization that things in America would never be the same after this day. We wouldn’t be so nieve to think that because we are a great superpower that no one will challenge us and we will always be safe because we trust in our government and our systems of belief. We believe that we will be protected from any radical suicide bombers or any terrorist. We were wrong. We were very very wrong. This poem expresses how we felt on this day and how we couldn’t really come to terms with what had actually happened until the day was over or much later on.

Blog 4 - Response to "A Little Numb"

I love the way this poem was structured; the short, concise lines kept me reading, wanting to know what happened. The line that really struck me the most was the one that said " "don't look up" / (don't look back)." I don't know why this one line stood out to me so much, but to me it just really conveyed what a horrible reality it must have been for the people present during this event. I also liked the repetition of the line "keep moving" even before the towers were hit because that thought seemed to remain with the narrator the entire time. It started out as him just trying to get through the work day and quickly evolved into him trying to escape and survive. This one thought is just a basic human instinct; whatever else may happen, you just always have to tell yourself to keep moving and not to look back. I was really impressed with how this poem was put together, and I thought it was really effective with the use of time stamps. It really helps the reader know exactly when each thing is happening during the narrator's day.

Early Tuesday Morning Analysis

I really liked this poem. When I read it, I felt like I was actually there. I could feel myself in New York that morning about to go out for the day. To have a brother with an apartment in that location would be wonderful. The last time I stayed in New York and got to go to Battery Park I had to stay in the Roosevelt. It was nice, but it wouldn’t have had any comparison to having a brother with an apartment in this prime location. I could see myself there that morning. I can imagine hearing the sounds and wondering what has happened as I am rushing out. I tense up when I begin to read the rest of the poem and things start to happen. I imagine the panic around the elevator. I would have been upset to see someone crying. I begin to sense stress and fear. I would have wondered what in the world is happening. I can imagine stopping and listening to the President on television and trying to gather some kind of information about what is going on. Then I hear about the Pentagon being hit. I would have been in a panic. I probably would have thought the world was ending. I can imagine coming back to my senses and thinking about my family. Panic would have been in my voice as I called my mom to check on my dad. Mom says she hasn’t heard from him and I think I am going to die. Then I get a mask and I am told to evacuate to Central Park. Mom calls me back and says dad is okay. I go to Central Park trying to breath. My eyes are burning. This poem took me through the emotions of actually being there that morning. I could feel it from the time the blinds open to the sun shining bright up until inhaling the toxic smoke and trying to evacuate.

Blog 4 Response to Poem: Dear Diana

I thought this poem was rather moving. I had never thought of what it would be like for an infant. They would not remember being there, but they were as much a part of history as any other human being on that dreadful day. I thought leaving “human history” by a line by itself was very effective. It definitely brought forward the idea that this was a wildly, life-changing event that would go down in human history for the rest of time. It was strange how the father knew what had happened as soon as he and his wife heard the “sonic boom.” I would not have known what to think. I would be more concerned about my life and the life of my family instead of wondering what had made that dreadful noise.

I like how “of the Trade Center” was left in a line by itself as well. I did the same thing in my poem to give it greater meaning. The line “And, it crossed my mind, my death” should have been broken up into smaller lines to give it a more dramatic feeling. Perhaps it could have been broken into a line for the mind and a line for the death. I love the “we prayed” lines. That is great repetition to get across the point of how they were concerned for those affected by this massive loss in our country. Over all, I loved the usage of the passage as a poetic letter to his baby girl. This would definitely be something that a grown-up Diana would cherish – the memory she would never remember, but would see through the eyes of her father.

-Megan Christy