Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath

by Joseph Bathanti (Editor), David Potorti (Editor)

No matter how you were touched by the events of September 11, 2001, that moment continues to resonate. Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath illuminates not only what happened that day, but what continues to challenge us twenty years later: Islamophobia, the vilification of refugees and asylum-seekers, nationalism, supercharged military budgets, and rises in virulent racism and domestic terrorism. Edited by former North Carolina poet laureate Joseph Bathanti and 9/11 family member and former literature and theater director for the North Carolina Arts Council David Potorti, Crossing the Rift takes head-on what Carolyn Forche calls “the poetry of witness” and its advocacy “for a shared sense of humanity and collective resistance.”

Genres: Poetry

220 pages, Hardcover

Published September 11, 2021

About the author

Joseph Bathanti was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He came to North Carolina as a VISTA Volunteer in 1976 to work with prison inmates. Bathanti is the author of four books of poetry: Communion Partners; Anson County; The Feast of All Saints; and This Metal, which was nominated for The National Book Award. His first novel, East Liberty, winner of the Carolina Novel Award, was published in 2001. His latest novel, Coventry, won the 2006 Novello Literary Award. They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina’s Visiting Artists, 1971-1995, his book of nonfiction, was published in early 2007. Most recently, his collection of short stories, The High Heart, winner of the 2006 Spokane Prize, was published by Eastern Washington University Press in 2007. He is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council; The Samuel Talmadge Ragan Award, presented annually for outstanding contributions to the Fine Arts of North Carolina over an extended period; the Linda Flowers Prize; the Sherwood Anderson Award, the 2007 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Prize; and others. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. On August 30, 2012, Joseph was named Poet Laureate of North Carolina.

Reviews

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

...all destruction / is self-destruction."
- Allan Wolf

One of the author bios in the back of the book begins by thanking members of the military for their sacrifices: as though the entire book had not happened. I'm tempted to go back and reread her poem but I can't be bothered. My sense of curiosity has long been blunted.

Picking up groceries today, I saw a man whose minivan was tattooed with indications of his military tour in Vietnam. As he loaded his groceries, I made out the back of his T-shirt: "We owe illegals nothing. We owe veterans everything."

Nevermind that this is a false, contrived dilemma that any idiot should see through.

We've deported veterans. The organization where I serve as board chair works to get "parole in place" status for undocumented family members of soldiers. I made a Facebook post about that particular service and was inundated with screeching, swearing, angry boomers in the comments. They don't give a fuck about anything but their weird grievances.

I've never had much patience for the "where were you when it happened?" As if that's all there is to know. As though I didn't compound the trauma of witnessing 9/11 by joining the Army, as though military sexual trauma didn't compound that, and so on.

If humanity had an ounce of compassion for itself, we would voluntarily cease reproducing and embrace extinction. But we won't. I get it.

The editor, Joseph Bathanti, was my creative writing professor at App State in 2006. Very nice guy. Not sure why I mention that.

There are good poems here. But not enough to make the book worth reading through. Half mediocre, a quarter "nice," and another quarter good.

Zooop.