September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond

by William Heyen (Editor), David Zane Mairowitz (Contributor), Joanna Scott (Contributor)

This book, which is unlike any other in our literature, was written during the three months following September 11, 2001. The editor wanted to catch the first, passionate reactions of many of our finest creative writers to a matrix of grievous events that would continue to intensify in the American memory as have few others. In September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond , more than 125 fiction writers, poets, and essayists are seized in ways that often surprise themselves; together they offer a revelation of our collective psyche during a perilous time.

Genres: Poetry

456 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

William Heyen was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940, and raised in Suffolk County by German immigrant parents. His graduate degrees are from Ohio University. A former Senior Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature in Germany, he has been honored with NEA, Guggenheim, American Academy of Arts & Letters and other awards. His poetry has appeared in the Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s, American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and in hundreds of other magazines and anthologies. His Crazy Horse in Stillness won the Small Press Book Award in 1997; Shoah Train: Poems was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2004. Heyen is Professor of English/Poet in Residence Emeritus at his undergraduate alma mater, SUNY Brockport.
Etruscan also published his September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond (2002), The Confessions of Doc Williams & Other Poems (2006), A Poetics of Hiroshima (2008), and The Football Corporations (2011).

His work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The Nation,The Ontario Review, and in over one hundred anthologies. Heyen is the author of: Erika: Poems of the Holocaust; The Host: Selected Poems 1965-1990 (both Time-Being Books, 1991, 1994); Diana, Charles, & the Queen; Crazy Horse in Stillness (both from BOA Editions, Ltd, 1998, 1996), the latter of which won the 1997 National Small Press Book Award for Poetry.

Reviews

[Antigone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have porous borders. I can relate to America in this way. Much crosses over the joke of a wall surrounding my psyche, and not all of it proceeds to operate in my best interest. Consequently, and much in the manner of my country, I've developed a screening process. And so...and so...that I am late to my 9/11 reading is not a surprise to me.

I remember that day. I remember the sudden silence of the sky, the empty streets, the marked absence of voices. I remember being alone, thousands of miles away from my family in Manhattan - one of whom was a bond trader and, for several hard hours, could not be located. I remember my immobility in front of that television set; the endless loop of tape replaying the second plane's moment of impact. I remember the pilot's deliberate, last-minute bank and thrust. I remember the plume of scarlet and black. The hundred times it hit that building and burst into flame; the hundred faces of women so similar to myself; the sisters, wives and mothers pleading, "Please. Please just tell me you've seen him." Bargaining down to a second-hand report. Third. Fourth. Please. I remember Bruce Springsteen standing in a field of candles, singing of his city of ruin, urging us to rise up. And I remember the later concert for the first responders. I remember Roger Daltry demanding to know. Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?

Blindsided. Too many questions. Too few answers. Skittering for the pocket of a metaphor like a ball on a roulette wheel. The tears. All the tears.

This initial stage of processing is fully illuminated in September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond. The breadth of our ignorance is conveyed by several contributors authoritatively referencing the Taliban plan, the Taliban intent, the Taliban stance. So many brains flailing to adopt a knowledgeable position; filling in the gaps with crusted political polemic and self-blame. Israel. Oil. Iraqi sanctions. Our support of the repressive Saudi regime. Third World exploitation. Of course, of course, who couldn't see this coming? Ever hopeful the architect of this horror might be right, might have cause, and it would turn out to be something we could address and change. Because if it wasn't something we might introject enough to take responsibility for and negotiate to further prevent? If it was simply a homicidal statement made to further the global ambitions of a religious zealot? What then?

Some writers understood that these initial moments of shock and devastation were individual - that, initially, it was a solo flight in hell; that you're alone before you're together; that the wounded must take stock of themselves prior to taking stock of something as ephemeral as a perpetrator's psychotic intent. These are the careful voices, and the two that moved me most belonged to Jack Matthews and Diane Seuss. Others, and understandably so, were desperately seeking control and some productive avenue to take. Some appeared quite unable to accept the full portion of powerlessness the day dealt. Unable just now. Yet. In the aftermath. On the heels. It was while reading these contributions that, for a scary second, I noted the kinship between these minds grappling to process and the airline passenger who had just witnessed his flight attendant's murder. If I wait. If I wait calmly now and behave well, better than I have...if I am good - not knowing. Not knowing of the World Trade Center, the ignorance of the inevitable banking into a building, the unawareness of next steps.

I'm giving this book my highest rating because I believe it preserves the multiplicity of reactions to a distinct moment in time, the moment immediately following the attacks of September 11. My companion reading, The 9/11 Commission Report, is equally important as a cogent response to the gut-wrenching cry for information on the heels of an incomprehensible event.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my full review at ____.
This book broadened my understanding of the varying perspectives about the September 11 attacks. As a very young school teacher during the attacks, I only experienced the reactions of the junior high students and fellow staff in my small private school. At just 24 years of age, I was unable to fully grasp the import of many Americans' responses, from calling bin Laden evil to questioning the unbelievability of America coming under attack.
The authors of this collection, originally published in the weeks directly following the tragedy, are much more mature, many of them having experienced other wars and seen both sides of America's choices regarding sanctions and other imperialistic outreaches. While I didn't agree with many of the authors' perspectives (some considered Bush to be not just inept, but actually in cahoots with the Iraqi terrorist cell), I learned much from seeing their responses in the immediate aftermath. I think there is much to be gleaned from hearing various opinions, and especially from hearing their initial knee-jerk reactions. I would highly recommend this to mature readers (not because of language, but because of the subject matter and repeated references to humans falling through space).

[Jeff Tigchelaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

timeless truth and wisdom is contained here. not just a date-specific-response-and-then-irrelevent work. a Heyen project, unsurprisingly.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for my lit class. I definitely enjoyed some of the entries over others, but overall I though it was really well done. Some of the poems spoke to me in a way I hadn't considered before.