In today’s blog, I have decided to focus on a very specific theme: trauma, with respect to Zeitoun, and our daily lives. I have chosen this theme because while reading the book, it struct me very deeply that the characters almost seemed to be made up, and that there is no way that this novel serves its purpose as a documentary and memoir to a family that actually exists. The story seemed almost surreal, not because it was strange, or misleading, but because just like Obasan, and the poems of Guantanamo, and Persepolis, and Safe area Gorazde, it was something almost unbelievable, and far away from what our generation is familiar with.
In the novel Zeitoun, we see clear outlines of the dates and times, pictures of the family and letters and emails that were written to the military. It reminded me of a journal, a personal notebook that someone keeps which contains the highlights of their life. Through each line, I was able to feel the characters’ frustration, sadness, disbelief, desperation, and the love between family members. Through each page, I was able to witness what happened, and how it happened. Through further research, I was able to acknowledge the consequences this tragedy has brought upon the Zeitouns, and many other families. This takes us back to my point: the whole of the book serves to illustrate a happening in real life and the suffering of real people. The fact that it is based upon a true story is truly frightening in a sense that we, as privileged as we are, will never be able to understand the pain that these people endured.
Trauma is relevant. It is relevant because to a lot of people, it is something engraved in their life in such a way that they will never be able to wipe it out completely. Whether it comes from a collective incident, or individual situation that led to a series of unfortunate events and feelings, it is there. It is there and we need to acknowledge it. The reason that literature which focuses on trauma is so important is because it paints a picture of reality for us to understand, to see and read about how extremely close to us these incidents really are. The people that have suffered might be your neighbor, your friend, or even someone from your family. Furthermore, different types and variations of trauma exist outside of these pieces too. No matter how big or how small, trauma is integrated in our lives so deeply that there is no way around it. Looking at all the global consequences that we are suffering, and all the individuals that write about their traumatic experiences, It is up to us as a global community, to reduce trauma, and help the globe heal.

As Robert Frost once said: “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found its words.” and the poems written by captives in Guantanamo bay and Juliana Spahr definitely capture the deep thought of sorrow shared amongst a group of people. This leads us back to the mention of collective suffering, and Butler’s argument that suggested a significant “us” and “them” in the process of mourning.
Contrasting the two poetry books, on one hand we have prisoners, people who symbolize, or who are classified as being evil, or committing some sort of crime. While of the other, we have the desperate outcries and facts of what happened during the horrible incident of 911. All the poems are sad, they mourn in a different way but for the same loss, the loss of having to part with their loved ones, and the loss of freedom. In a sense, all of the people mentioned in the two works are suffering from being “caged”, either in a literal or physical sense. Unable to connect with the outer world and completely shutting themselves out. In addition, there really is no “us” and “them” with regard to suffering, since it cannot be measured and is felt is roughly a very similar way. Butler’s article talks about how these incidents may drive us further apart, and in real life, we are the people that decide whether we deicide to close off from the entire community or not.
In Spahr’s poem that is written right after 911, she takes an approach not necessarily specific towards the people that suffered due to the attack, but stating how all of us divide from cells, how all of us breathe in the space between our hands. She talks of unity, rather than accusation. As for poems of Guantanamo bay, we see the subtle gentleness in between the lines of the people that were accused of committing crimes. I believe that both poetry books strive to overcome the inflicted sense of separation between individual entity and society, going beyond the events themselves, and focusing more on the thought that is conveyed miraculously through the lines of poems.