Hello ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in-between! In this post, I would like to discuss a poem called “The Names” by Billy Collins.
This poem features the last names of 9/11 victims recited throughout the poem in alphabetical order, described by Collins as appearing around the city. The last names used are very diverse, which is very reflective of the large diverse amount of people affected by this trauma. As a memorial to 9/11, Billy Collins’s poem is inclusive to all the people whose names he didn’t use, all due to one line near the end of the poem. When Collins writes “let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound”, he is memorializing all the people that have not been mentioned. This includes everyone that Collins has not mentioned as well as everyone who has experienced this trauma, and have not been recognized by any memorialization. Similarly to Collins choice of names, he chose to describe these names appearing in a variety of locations around the city. He uses diverse Phases such as “A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox” and “Names blown over the earth and out to sea”. This is very reflective of the large area that 9/11 affected. The trauma that 9/11 left was not only the physical damage that surrounded ground zero, It was the emotional loss and suffering that covered the entire city and spread around the globe.
Finally, This poem recognizes the impossibility of representing all the people impacted by 9/11 in its last line “So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart”. Billy Collins is representing the incomprehensibility that comes along with a tragedy like 9/11. It’s so hard to think about all the people that we aren’t remembering, and it becomes emotionally difficult to understand the scale of mass trauma that comes with an event like this. I admire that Billy Collins finishes off his list of names by acknowledging that, just like 9/11, This poem is very heavy and difficult to process.