9/11 by Robert Pinsky
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Without falling into jingoism or being over-sentimental, Robert Pinskys poem “9/11” generates a commendable ode to the spirit that drives this country, in addition to revealing the American culture for what it truly is – enthusiastic and frivolous, courageous and fallible, petty and resilient. For most Americans, September 10th is Before, and everything since is After.
Citizens from every state across the U.S. responded immediately to the attacks by giving blood and donating much-needed items to shelters, where an overwhelming amount of aid was sent to assist the itinerant victims. However, its ironic that the American people – who were so benevolent and charitable for the populace of the 9/11 tragedy – would turn their backs on and as soon as forget about the southern states devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Americans own self-centeredness gave way and gave way to greed, when the Louisiana didnt receive the same helpful consideration New York.
The American culture has evolved to thrive off of mass media and digital information on such a large scale; its no wonder that weve become primarily a visual society:
“We adore images, we like the spectacle
Of speed and size, the working of prodigious
Systems. So on television we watched
The terrible spectacle, repetitiously gazing
Until we were sick not only of the sight
Of our prodigious systems turned against us
But of the very systems of our watching.” (Lines 1-7)
The American psyche has a weird fascination, a tendency bordering on curious attraction to “repetitiously gaze” (line 4). This inclination came to a peak during the September 11th attacks while most people willingly, yet reluctantly, watched image after image of the same newsreels for days on end. In the poem, there were also numerous references to the American culture and its love of visual media and celebrities, such that we are “more likely to name an airport for an actor / or athlete than First of May or Fourth of July (lines 10-11).” There is tension shown between who Americans are as individuals – ill-mannered, self-absorbed, and greedy – and the image sent to the outside world as what Americans want to be seen as – unprejudiced, altruistic, and open-minded.
Americas “togetherness,” our connectivity with each other, proved false after beginning to fall apart as more and more time passed, and the culture moved away from “horrific” and “terrifying” to “thats so sad” and “Im so sorry.” When Pinksy mentions notorious historic figures, he is proposing that Americans are not as “together” as we would like to seem:
“Will Rogers was a Cherokee, a survivor
Of expropriation. A roper, a card. For some,
A hero. He had turned sixteen the year
That Frederick Douglass died. Douglass was twelve
When Emily Dickinson was born. Is even Donald
Half-forgotten?–Who are the Americans, not
A people by blood or religion?” (Lines 21-27)
By including familiar faces such as Frederick Douglass and Emily Dickenson co-habitating along side a “half-forgotten Donald Duck,” he is idolizing “real” Americans, actual people who contributed to freedom and the ideals on which our founding fathers hoped our nation would achieve. I believe this is why Pinksy includes these names in the poem – for the very fact that they were ordinary people who achieved many great things – instead of including mainstream celebrities such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Somehow previous generations are dismissed and forgotten when people are not personally affected or connected to the past.
A source of Americas disunity is attributed to the fact that the nations character has always involved inspiration and vulgarity in proportions so easily mixed that the two arent easily distinguished. This becomes a part of our strength to be unified as one, as well as our vulnerability to accentuate fallacies and thus fall apart:
“And mystic Masonic totems of the Founders:
The Eye of the Pyramid watching over us,
Hexagram of Stars protecting the Eagles head
From terror of pox, from plague and radiation.” (Lines 37-40)
The symbolism used above represents Americas view of