Whitman's Presence in 9/11

Hum
by Ann Lauterbach This poem uses a tactic of remembrance of better days. It looks to the future to remind us that the mourning will not last forever and that we will move on to beautiful days. "The days are beautiful./The towers are yesterday." This reminds me of the symbolic song in Whitman's poem being the ever present reminder of death, but by the end, as a whole, we are able to move on.

As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses,

Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves,

I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with          spring.

I cease from my song for thee,

Lauterbach's poem differ from Whitman's in that it doesn't take time to settle in the death. In the first line, it is already addressing a time where death is not present. Whitman, even though he moves on, still addresses that death will always be there. He's just leaving it for now. This makes me see that Whitman uses a more realist approach in his poetry than any other.


if bin laden read dr. seussby markk


This poem uses a tactic of common hate. He takes the confusion held by America as a whole and uses it to address a bin laden, making a common symbol of hatred that can bring everyone together. This also reminds me of Whitman's symbolic song. Both poets are using an object or symbol to identify the common emotions threaded through the people experiencing the tragedy. Also, even though markk uses hate and confusion for his tactic and Whitman uses love and memory, markk takes a "Whitman-esc" approach to ending his poem, wishing well for bin laden. 

tonight you will dream of lambs& flutes & calm nectars fromfruited vines, because i will it so& that white light you see is myshadow. open yer heart man, havesome green eggs, i know you don'teat ham, & i'd like you to meetmy friend sam, yes, sam i am

Photograph from September 11

BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA


This poem takes an entirely different approach to national grieving by exploring the moments right before death through the eyes of a few individuals. In fact, the poem never even reaches death 

They’re still within the air’s reach,within the compass of places
that have just now opened.

Although, I believe this has a similar end result to what Whitman does in his poem for it is making the reader experience what brought on this death, triggering a grieving process. For me, Whitman's entire poem is about the grieving process. This makes me see that Whitman, in his poem, is trying to ease the reader into death, which makes me feel that his poem can work for 'similar historical ruptures and disasters."  

Project Expanded

So I am attempting to understand Whitman's views on slavery and how that relates to his peers as well as the common American of the time. I am slowly realizing that there really wasn't a common thread belief throughout the people, hence the separation of the North and the South. I am discovering though that there was a common desire to believe in something. When reading an article about Whitman's relation to pro-slavery and how he was marketed to the south as "the rage" as a strategy to get his work out there, Van Evrie, the editor of the Day Book, a pro-slavery newspaper, was compared to Whitman in their reader and who they appealed to

"socially insecure whites in search of a sense of identity that could help make the existing social and economic systems more tolerable.”

 I think what I want to do now is find that voice within Whitman and his peers and capture it in the Cento poem I am creating. In order to do so, I will research further about the Free Soil movement, something Whitman was said to be apart of, and artists on both ends of the slavery spectrum such as William Douglas O'Connor, John Townsend Trowbridge, Franklin Benjamin Sandborn, Van Evrie etc. I will also search through newspaper articles that these people were featured in such as Commonwealth, an anti-slavery paper, and Day Book, a pro-slavery paper. I am hoping to find a common thread as mentioned earlier having to do with a search for an identity.