“I speak.”

In our earlier unit, we analyzed Judith Butler’s article “Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect. Frames of War: When is a Life Grievable?” where she raised questions such as where do we draw the line between Us and Them? As well, to what extent do we grieve certain people? Why do we grieve who we grieve for? Her article and the questions that arose came across my mind once again these past couple of weeks as we have been focusing on poems.

Going along with our themes of Trauma and Memory, our ASTU class has been reading and analyzing various poems by Collins, Szymborska, Turner, Auden, and Spahr. These poems have revolved around the 9/11 tragedy as well as other disasters that have happened around the world in history.

Poems being composed how they are, our class discussions were spent trying to decipher what each author wanted to convey. In regard to Photograph from September 11, our class was interested in how Wislawa ended the poem abruptly after focusing in on the “individual among the collective”. Likewise, we spent time on Spahr’s second poem contemplating “how she represents the witness perspective”. Approaching these two poems, I felt as though they somewhat hold a response towards Butler. Both poems in my opinion, seem to draw a distinct line between Us and Them in the way that they seem to reflect a reporter point of view. The authors know the information as they had done the research, to have the authority to talk about the facts. However, at the same time, they are conscious to note that this had not happened to them. They are simply observing and informing readers of what they know. Looking at the former poem, the last stanza intrigued me, “I can do only two things for them – describe this flight and not add a last line.” I feel like this is strong proof of drawing the line between Us vs. Them because here the author distances herself from the “Falling Man” scenario she is illustrating. And in the latter poem, a huge emphasis was on the language and the way in which she used plurals and the first person “I”. “I speak of” resonates authority but it also conveys (in a way) that it is not from personal experience.

This careful authority they are holding through art is not restrictive to just observing and informing. I also feel like because they have the language to communicate, they are emphasizing this paradox of a connection. Through composing stanzas about real-life (political and social) tragedies they connect us to the trauma felt by victims but by putting themselves at a witness point of view, we feel a sense of disconnectedness. We are not able to feel what the victims feel because we have not been in their situation, but these authors write these poems in such a way that we feel at the very least, aware of them. They make us aware of minuscule details that we are ignorant towards that is in part, as a result of our lack of experience. We are in our own beds, as Spahr tells us, and we can’t figure out how to stop it from being that way. We’re connected to everyone else, but not connected, and there’s something mysterious about it that I just can’t grasp. Why is there this paradox of a world connection? Why does this exist? Or even, why does the media and the Internet reinforce this paradox? Why are we always at a distance? Are readers supposed to gain understanding for change out of these poems or are these simply informative? With Geography also on my mind, through the shrinking of the world, is there something that we will inevitable have to do or deal with? Or will things just stay the same? I’m curious as to what you guys think!!

Have a good week! Keep smiling!

KYLO 🙂