This Connection of Everyone with Lungs: Close Reading

Even if you are not directly affected by world events, the ripples they leave in society definitely will. In the “Poem Written After September 11, 2001”, Juliana Spahr reinforces this idea through the lens of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. She uses repetition and imagery to pull the reader into the tragic event to demonstrate that, even though we were not directly affected by the event, the repercussions on society are felt by everyone and everything in the world. 

“The space of everyone that has just been inside of everyone mixing inside of everyone with nitrogen and oxygen and water vapour and argon and carbon dioxide and suspended dust spores and bacteria mixing inside of everyone with sulfur and sulfuric acid and titanium and nickel and minute silicon particles from pulverized glass and concrete.

How lovely and how doomed this connection of everyone with lungs.”

Spahr uses repetition to build a pattern of normalcy when she states that we share the nitrogen, oxygen, water vapour, argon, carbon dioxide, dust spores, and bacteria in the air with everyone in the world. She built this pattern in order to break it when she adds sulfur, sulfuric acid, titanium, nickel, and silicon from glass and concrete to the list of atmospheric elements we all share. This creates painful imagery in order to shock the reader into realizing that the reverberations of the event are still being felt today.