September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond

by Joy Harjo

Book Overview

Poetry. Non-Fiction. written during the three months following September 11th. Catches the first passionate reactions of our country's finest writers to the matrix of events that will continue to intensify in the American conscience, and that will inevitably define the dawn of the new century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971822808
• ISBN13: 9780971822801
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Etruscan Press
• Length: 456 Pages
• Weight: 1.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

American Writers Respond- A Place to Turn

September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond is a carefully put together anthology dealing with the attacks on the World Trade Center. This compilation contains pieces written by over 100 different authors and its diverse contents allow it to appeal to a variety of people. Stylistically it is difficult to describe September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond because the genre is so widespread. The anthology includes poems, essays, short stories, fictional stories, non-fictional stories, letters, and poems-the list could continue. Each author has their own style yet the pieces have a way of fitting together and creating an amazing collection of artist's reactions to the events on September 11th. Authors like Daniela Gioseffi makes the reader laugh because she writes about an entertaining (and touching) conversation she has with a nine year old girl while authors like Fred Moramarco makes the reader cry because the contents of his poem include the final conversations of September 11th victim's lives. The different authors attempt to affect the reader in different ways creating an extremely effective anthology. The pieces in the compilation of writings are arranged in alphabetical order by the author's last name. This unoriginal organization is actually a very effective technique used by the editor, William Heyen, because it leaves the reader in anticipation of what is left to come. Heyen could have organized the anthology by grouping similar pieces together but this option is undoubtedly inferior to his choice of arrangement. Because every author has a different point of view and style, the reader has no idea what to expect when they begin the next piece in the anthology. The reader may find two poems similar in content back to back, or an essay followed by a memoir with contents differing from one extreme to the next. The anticipation that builds within the reader regarding the content of the upcoming pieces makes September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond a book that people do not want to set down. It is impossible to read September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond without questioning your own view on the attacks. The anthology represents an abundance of different points of view. From Muslims to Christians, Middle Eastern people to American people, presidential supporters to presidential protestors; every view is represented. One of the most amazing things about this collection of writings is the wide range of feelings it produces. There are pieces like "the window, at the moment of flame", by Alicia Ostriker, that produce feelings of anger and disbelief in many readers because it blames the Americans for the tragedy. There are also pieces like Richard Wilbur's "Letter" that produce nationalistic feelings and recreate a true sense of love and pride for America. A person's opinion of the nation and the attacks prior to reading September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond will definitely be challenged because of th

important for the future

This collection needs to be on our shelves for a long, long time, as we come to understand and articulate what occurred in New York and Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001. The book is more powerful than many other books on the subject because it's a collection of many voices and because these are the voices of people who devote their lives to writing, to finding language that captures a moment or grapples with an idea.Moreover, this book isn't just the usual, big-name authors, though they are represented well by Wendell Berry, Lucille Clifton, Diane Glancy, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ishmael Reed, John Updike, and others. Some of the best--the most delicate, the most demanding--writing in this anthology is by relative unknowns. Nancy Kuhl's piece obsesses on the numbers, on their truthfulness and their discrepency. Richard Deming writes of the inadequacy of normalcy, the role of television, and the theory of language. Al Hellus, like a friend of my own, states "It was my birthday." Bruce Mills explores the ways in which we understand space and perspective as we look to the horizon. Almost every writerly voice matters here.Indeed, this text would be a good one for high school and college students. Really, though, it's for all of us. This collection by American writers at a particular moment will serve as an intellectual, emotional, and artistic resource for years to come.

This book is great

I seldomn read. In fact, this is the first book I've picked up in about a year and it is excellent. I'm just a construction worker, but this book really means a lot to me. I don't get everythingin it, but it has helped me to understand these tragedies.Everyone who thinks about 911 with any frequency should buy this and it will heal you a bit.I'm goign to read it with my daughters so we can heal and understand as a family.

Insight and Consolation

although i'm sure this anthology will be used in classrooms across the country, i love it because it puts poetry back in the hands of emotional people. from well-respected writers such as John Updike, W.S. Mervin, AI, Wendell Berry, and dozens more to writers for whom this marks their first publication, these essayists, poets, and writers of hybrid forms of letters and fiction talk about September 11th in personal terms that, because they are so candidly offered, provide insight and consolation for all of us, anyone whose tv flickered for days while the towers fell, fell, fell. some of the writers were there, some knew someone who was, but they all react as if they felt that collapse in their teeth.

a wonderfully subtle stronghold by a true visionary

Most of us had trouble dealing with the events of sepetember 11th. The poets/writers in this compelling collection of responses to the horror of that day chisel us a foothold, a starting point from which we can begin to collectively understand ourselves in relation to our new community - shared angst as sinews. Not only is the book stuffed with peice after peice of gripping and devastating prose and poetry, it lives as one entire work. Each stands as a new brick in our hopeful and sometimes pessimistic reconstruction. William Heyen is our Master Mason. His selection of contibutors and subsequent arrangment of their words allows us to tread for a while with them and then with our own bombarded constitutions. Heyen has brought together the big names, the poetic underground, and the gristly spine of the writing community. This book should be on all of our shelves as a peice of living national histroy, and in the reeling hands of all school children.