Poetry after 9/11

About this book

This collection features the work of some of New York's preeminent poets, including Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn and National Book Award finalist Alicia Ostriker, at a pivotal moment in America's history-one year after the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks. The poems, including many that have never been published before, cover an extraordinary variety of responses to the experience of writing and living in the aftermath of September 11. Some pieces offer eyewitness accounts of poets at the scene; others touch more indirectly upon the events and reflect the somber resonance of the tragedy's impact upon life in the city. All reflect a gravitation toward the healing powers of self-expression, which were visible everywhere in the days after the attacks: on the walls of the firehouses, in letters to the editor at local newspapers, even scrawled in the dusty ash covering lower Manhattan.