american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
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46 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY<br />
both <strong>the</strong> difficulty of his task and <strong>the</strong> ways that disaster utterly<br />
redef<strong>in</strong>es personal and collective experience.<br />
In <strong>the</strong> second stanza, K<strong>in</strong>nell tests his populist, <strong>in</strong>clusive, democratic<br />
mettle. He beg<strong>in</strong>s with four listless, ba<strong>the</strong>tic l<strong>in</strong>es that show “The<br />
banker,” “Humberto,” “The trader,” and “The mail sorter” at <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
tasks <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> towers. K<strong>in</strong>nell makes <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>tention of <strong>the</strong>se simple sentences<br />
transparent <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> next eight l<strong>in</strong>es, which alternate between French and<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir English translations. They show <strong>in</strong> a transparent way that <strong>the</strong><br />
attacks killed “poor and rich” and “wise and foolish,” amongst o<strong>the</strong>r<br />
classes and types of people. The message is simple, undeniable: death was<br />
<strong>in</strong>discrim<strong>in</strong>ate. Two aspects of K<strong>in</strong>nell’s strategy stand out. First, <strong>the</strong><br />
technique is heavy-handed, unnecessary, and a bit contrived, although it<br />
is <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g that <strong>the</strong> only named person <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> poem is a wage worker<br />
with a Romance language name. Second, <strong>the</strong> use of French is perplex<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
Perhaps K<strong>in</strong>nell was th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g of The New Yorker audience (if <strong>in</strong>deed<br />
he composed it for that audience), but <strong>the</strong> immediate translations negate<br />
<strong>the</strong> need to read French. The French, however, is less appropriate than<br />
Spanish, which was spoken by countless thousands <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> World Trade<br />
Center, especially by its wage workers. Spanish would have been more<br />
realistic and more true to life than French, and to this reader at least, less<br />
contrived. K<strong>in</strong>nell, though, may have been bound by his knowledge and<br />
experience. If knowledgeable <strong>in</strong> French but not <strong>in</strong> Spanish, he may have<br />
felt more comfortable with us<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> former to suggest <strong>the</strong> hundreds of<br />
foreign nationals who lost <strong>the</strong>ir lives <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> attacks. The use of French<br />
may also resonate more given <strong>the</strong> conflict with <strong>the</strong> French about <strong>the</strong> war<br />
<strong>in</strong> Iraq. Though <strong>the</strong> conflict was not yet astir <strong>in</strong> September 2002, <strong>the</strong><br />
poem’s French could be seen now by supporters of <strong>the</strong> Iraq War as<br />
denigrat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> French for refus<strong>in</strong>g to be part of <strong>the</strong> U.S. coalition,<br />
which would be a serious misread<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>the</strong> poem.<br />
If Blanchot believes that writ<strong>in</strong>g about disaster is an impossible<br />
task, Cixous provides a better, although dishearten<strong>in</strong>g, strategy for<br />
writ<strong>in</strong>g about disaster. For her, “th<strong>in</strong>gs which are unspeakable” and<br />
that “take our breath away” should be addressed by “<strong>in</strong>scrib<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong><br />
question, signify<strong>in</strong>g our impotence, our obligation, our memory of<br />
what is happen<strong>in</strong>g” (232). K<strong>in</strong>nell does precisely this when he uses a<br />
deflated, hopeless voice to catalog <strong>the</strong> varieties of death <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> towers.<br />
The syntactical parallelism is strik<strong>in</strong>g:<br />
Some died while call<strong>in</strong>g home to say <strong>the</strong>y were O.K.<br />
Some died after over an hour spent learn<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong>y would die.<br />
Some died so abruptly <strong>the</strong>y may have seen death from with<strong>in</strong> it.<br />
Some broke w<strong>in</strong>dows and leaned out and waited for rescue.