Poetry as monument: Jenny Holzer and the memorial poems of 9/11

Abstract

This essay argues for poetry’s memorial function. After the 9/11 attacks, poetry circulated widely in the United States. Explanations of the genre’s sudden popularity primarily focus on its comfort role—divorcing its role in private settings from its role in public ones. I suggest that poems be recognized as “technologies of memory” (Sturken), politically charged objects through which memories are produced and given meaning. I discuss an installation by conceptual artist Jenny Holzer featured in the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center that consists of 36 hours of poetry scrolling across a large LED screen; poems were selected on the developer’s idea that there only be “positive stuff, good stuff” at this historic site. The installation’s positive mandate reflects a shift, as previous critics have noted, in commemoration practices more generally toward an emphasis on hope and healing. I discuss how poetry affects and is affected by this shift. I read three poems written on the first anniversary of 9/11 (yet excluded from Holzer’s installation) that function as exemplary technologies of memory.

Keywords

commemoration Jenny Holzer poetry 11 September 2001 technologies of memory Wisława Szymborska World Trade Center

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