Last week, we remembered 9/11 once again. So many of the deep divisions of our country seem embodied in the social media posts related to the remembrances people seek to bring to that event, a phenomenon both disturbing and ironic since the days following that horrific event seemed to bring us so quickly together as a nation. A lot of the anger of that day has clearly not been processed, and it seems every year provides new waves of anger to add to the growing fire in the hearts and bellies of our neighbors.
Anna Carter Brown, reflecting on her own experience that led to the poem that follows, writes, “I was still thinking and writing about 9/11 when I read an article in the Times which described the cleanup after a tornado devastated Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011, killing nearly 160 and injuring 1,150. The article reminded me of Ginsberg’s 1980 rant-poem railing against the many places in the world with man-made environmental disasters. Anger does not come naturally to me, having been taught as a child to suppress it, but including ‘Homework’ in my poem title allowed me to refer obliquely to the anger I felt after 9/11, which I had never expressed.” Here’s Brown’s poem:
On Reading Allen Ginsberg’s “Homework”
Andrea Carter Brown
after an article in the New York Times
It was in the Financial Section. On page 3, below
the fold. A huge multi-national conglomerate is
praised for an “innovative marketing program”
that washes dirty clothes and linens for free
after a disaster. This time it’s the tornado
that tore through Joplin, but Loads of Hope
began after Katrina. When I think how hard
and costly it was to wash everything we
didn’t throw away after 9/11, my eyes
well up. To begin with, no water or electricity.
It would be months before new machines
arrived to replace those contaminated by dust.
Everything in closets, dressers, chests had to be
hauled to a distant laundry. The sheer number
of quarters it took, the fear that, no matter
how many wash, rinse and spin cycles,
our clothes would never be clean enough
to put against skin. Allergic to perfumes
as I became after 9/11, I want to breathe
in the Tide of cleanliness; to be one of the lucky,
leaving our filthy belongings with strangers
to remove what they can of disaster and return
them to us, clean, neatly folded, wrapped
in paper, bagged, and tied with a ribbon.
Copyright © 2022 by Andrea Carter Brown.