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Sarah Robinson

Course Name: ENG 102 Section # 32354

Instructor: Laura Darrow

Date: 9/05/2010

Analysis of “Photograph from September 11” by Wislawa

Szymborska

September 11, 2001 will be a date synonymous to everyone as the day the world

as we know it changed for our generation and future generations. In Wislawa

Szymborska’s poem ‘Photograph From September 11” she describes the emotions of just

one horrific aspect of that day and has the reader remember the feelings they felt

watching those poor people fall from the Twin Towers.

The simplicity of the poem is very engaging in that it is an event that everyone

has a memory of in our generation, such as I am sure poetry wrote about the Vietnam

War and World War II would have been a strong memory for people in those times. What

I found appealing about the poem was that out of all the terrible events of that day she

focused the poem on just one aspect of that day, and the one aspect people steered away

from talking about. The images of people jumping from the World Trade Towers in New

York was an image that everyone saw when they turned on their television that day and it

was such a horrific thing to see that it really is one that no one will ever forget. Wislawa’s

poem is so moving that it takes the person reading back to that day, her description of

watching them fall and her narrative of what they must have been thinking during that

fall.
 I felt Szymborska was saying the images from television and photographs taken

off these poor people falling has some how immortalized them in time. That they will

remain that way, falling through the air stuck for eternity. The following lines I think

describe this:

“The photograph halted them in life,

and now keeps them

above the earth toward the earth.” (4-6)

The interpretation and overall tone of the poem suggests that we as a society

halted that day and we became like the people in the fall, halted in time on that day for

eternity. From her description of the fall it was that the amount of time elapsed during the

fall may have been short in reality but to them must have felt like an eternity to them and

us watching:

“There’s enough time

for hair to come loose,

for keys and coins

to fall from pockets.” (10-13)

With time to see the earth below them approaching and for personal possessions

to come loose which I thought could be a metaphor for them being stripped of personal

possession to be bare and exposed to everyone and powerless to prevent it, which in a

way was how we were as a western culture that day. During that fall the day to day

feelings of how we look to others and our personal dignity and opinions of others play
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such an important role, but that day stripped everyone of that people found solace and

peace in the arms of total strangers; everyone felt the same pain yet no one could describe

it or hide from it.

I was not living in America on that dreadful day but the emotions of that day were

felt by everyone world wide, and that is why I think this poem touched me as it took me

back to home in Australia. Remembering turning on the television and that image of

people falling being the first thing we saw and just the shock of it is something I will

never forget. I believe that was Szymborska’s purpose with this poem, so we don’t forget

what happened and to just take a moment and try to just wrap your mind around what

they must have felt during that fall.

I thought the final lines of the poem were very touching and she shows her own

feelings of hopelessness even as she writes the poem:

“I can do only two things for them—

describe this flight
and not add a last line.”(17- 19 )

From these last lines I feel she is trying to pay respect without describing how it

ultimately ended for them. Like many that day her use of desperation in her words,

mirrors how we felt, there was nothing we could do or say that was going to make the

situation change or relieve the pain for the families who had lost loved ones. The use of

the word “flight” is interesting; could it possible our (as in Western culture) flight of the

end of feelings of being an impervious society? I found ‘Photograph From September

11’ touching and relative to the times of turmoil we are in right now as a country and for

this to be wrote by a fellow non-American I found I could relate better as I know how

much it not only affected Americans on that day but everyone world wide felt the same
loss, pain and heartache. As Wislawa says “They’re still within air’s reach” (14), those

images will stay within reach to us for us to remember what happened that day and the

lives lost but also remind us we are not invulnerable.

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Work cited

Szymborska, Wislawa, “Photograph from September 11” from Monologue of a Dog.

2005. Sep 12.2010.Web.www.poetryfoundation.org