A closer look at a terrible 9/11 poem

Remember when I said there was a lot of terrible 9/11 poetry out there?

Wonkette does a masterful close reading of "Honoring September 11th: We Remember" by Chele Stanton, a poem posted to Andrew Breitbart’s conservative Big Hollywood blog on, of course, Sept. 11. Why Stanton wanted to associate her name and photo with the poem is unclear. But some people have no shame. Or talent.

Explains Wonkette:

"Note the descent into chaos here: the rhyme scheme starts as A B C B (this is like the World Trade Center at 7:00 a.m., structured, professional, 'nothin’ to see here,' etc.); takes a turn several stanzas down into A B C kinda-B (After the first tower gets hit, things starting to unravel, 'looks like some pilot’s been drinkin’, ain’t that right, Brad?'); then finally devolves into prosaic stream-of-consciousness anger-porn (Both towers hit, hysteria, 'Whoa hey shit man, that’s twice now, right?'). This is not an accident."

Thanks, Laura, for the tip.

Biden's 9/11 poetry recitation

Speaking of poetry and 9/11, Joe Biden read Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese" at the eighth anniversary commemoration of the 9/11 attacks at Ground Zero. A most excellent choice, I think.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

(Mary Oliver, from Dream Work, 1986 Atlantic Monthly Press)

There are a lot of 9/11 poems in the world

And a lot of them are bad. So I am sparing you by posting Dorianne's "Cello" instead.

Cello

When a dead tree falls in a forest
it often falls into the arms
of a living tree. The dead,
thus embraced, rasp in wind,
slowly carving a niche
in the living branch, shearing away
the rough outer flesh, revealing
the pinkish, yellowish, feverish
inner bark. For years
the dead tree rubs its fallen body
against the living, building
its dead music, making its raw mark,
wearing the tough bough down
as it moans and bends, the deep
rosined bow sound of the living
shouldering the dead.

(Dorianne Laux, from Facts About the Moon, 2007 WW Norton)