“I Saw You Walking” by Deborah Garrison is a powerful tribute to the deceased victims and the survivors of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The poem centers on the experience of the poet as she comes into contact with a survivor seemingly right after he escaped the wreckage of the fallen towers. As Garrison takes notice of this man, spared from the fate that many others had succumbed to, she is overwhelmed with gratitude that he, and the many others, are alive. Whether the encounter was fictional or based on a realistic occurrence remains to be unknown. The depth of the detail of the poem, utilized through numerous poetic devices, makes this poem an experience that allows many of us to be at Ground Zero, reliving that horrific day in American history.
While Garrison uses many poetic devices, the one most prominent, and best at contributing to the meaning of the poem is imagery. September 11th was an event that will forever be stored away in the memory banks of those who witnesses that dark day, whether as a bystander, a concerned citizen shocked by the images on the television as the tragedy continued to unfold, or a victim. Garrison’s imagery takes us back to that day, bringing into sharp focus of the mind’s eye the victims with their “shoes of white ash” (Garrison 2) and their “hair powdered white like your feet, but underneath, not yet gray” (24,25). Though Garrison is describing one person, a man in a train station, this individual could have been any of the victims or bystanders within the vicinity of the attack, their hair and clothes dusted with the white powder from the fallen towers.
Garrison also uses sharp imagery in describing the physical state of the man. “One shirt arm’s sheared clean from the shoulder, the whole bare limb wet with muscle and shining dimly pink” (7,9) and “his dusted back, half-shirted” (28) shows the devastation that this survivor experienced in minute detail. Garrison’s closing lines of the poem read, “I should have dropped to my knees to thank God you were alive, o my God, in whom I don’t believe” (29,30) suggests her disbelief that, at seeing the horrid, mangled condition of this man, he had been lucky enough to survive. Since this poem is based on an event that really happened, seeing Garrison’s perception of some of the trauma experienced by the victims make the event that much more surreal, as well as that much more real. The victim, whether he is fictional or real, is no less part of the reality of that day.
The imagery also allows us to see that the theme of Garrison’s haunting poem is that of gratitude for life. The most profound word choice is when she describes the age of the man as “… forty seven? Forty eight? The age of someone’s father?” (25,26), which suddenly gives this anonymous man a potential background story. If this indeed was someone’s father, and if he were a parent then his children would be fairly young, it was by grace that he survived the attack and was able to go home to his family. In the aforementioned line 29,30, where Garrison expresses her thankfulness to a God “in which I don’t believe,” her gratitude is deep that such a man, a parent, would be spared his life. The miracle of this man’s survival is so astounding to Garrison that she finds herself thanking a divine being that she does not believe exists, which truly shows the depth of her appreciation. These lines, coupled with the imagery of the man’s physical state, reveals that this man has much to be thankful for.
The poetic device of symbolism is also present throughout the poem. The man himself, in his damaged state, is symbolic to the surreality of the attacks. The tragedy of September 11th is one that is not always easy to put into words, to describe the sheer terror of those harrowing hours. Garrison, while of course using words, lets the disposition of the man speak for how horrifying the situation had been. “Your dazed passage… Your face itself seemed to be walking leading your body north, though the age on the face, blank and ashen…”(3, 20-22) is symbolic of the pure devastation that the man, and the other victims and bystanders, had witnessed. Similarly, this man can also be considered a symbol of the other victims of this tragedy as each person who walked away with their lives had done so under the same circumstance. This lone man, this survivor, was every survivor.
Finally, Garrison utilizes the device of metaphor, comparing the injured man to a drunken man. “Your dazed passage first forced me away, tracing the crescent birth you’d give a drunk… nuzzling all corners with ill will and his stench” (3-5) shows how uncomfortable Garrison was around this man. He was a spectacle, a torn and bloody man walking through the train station, and Garrison thought him as attention-grabbing as a drunk person. His dazed look and his ragged appearance hinted at the drunken state but as Garrison skirted past this man, she realized that this was not the case. “Not this one, not today” (7) she realized as the fully took in his appearance, his missing limb and the dust coating his body. He was very much like a drunk man, wandering about in a daze, unable to take anything in, but instead of alcohol warming his blood, trauma was turning it to ice.
Garrison mindfully picked language and devices that would accentuate the meaning of her poem, the importance of gratitude in the face of such destruction. Through the use of imagery, theme, and symbolism, and metaphor, Garrison takes us back to a time that cannot be described merely in words. Perhaps this is why Garrison focused on the mutilated appearance and shocked face of this one man to convey the horror of that day instead of just depending on words alone. This man, immortalized through Garrison’s poem, serves as a reminder to never forget the reasons to be grateful for a chance at life.
Taking on the same theme, the poem, “The Names” by Billy Collins brings about truth and honesty for the people who perished in the September 11th attacks on America. Collins composed a poem that reminds us of that horrid day and the people who we lost. The author uses imagery, metaphors, and allegory to describe the thoughts and remembrance of that day. He uses the names of the victims of September 11th, so that we can re-visualize that day. The poem, “The Names” has a deep meaning to anyone who was directly affected by the September 11th attacks on America. He captures the words and creates a memory for those who perished during this time. Using the alphabet he uses one letter to symbolize each name of the victims. He chooses one name to represent each letter. The letters become synonymous with the names themselves. He devises a poem where he goes in alphabetical order to capture how many people have passed. The author uses words of imagery to describe how he feels. In the first stanza he says, “Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night. / A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze” (1-2). Using the word night he is letting us know that his feelings of this time are dark, yet the word breeze lets us know we should move on and go with the wind. By using one name per letter, the author is explaining to the reader that he realizes the number of people who have died, but it is impossible to write each name down. The names are slipping through our fingers, and we’re forgetting how many have died. In the fourth stanza the author is explaining how we are seeing names everywhere around us. The author uses allegory to by using the letters of the alphabet to represent each victim. He even finds a letter for the people unaccounted for. Many people went unaccounted for, in which the poet uses the letter X to describe. “let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound” (42).
The author ends the poem with “So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart” (55). He is reminding his readers, which at the first reading of this poem, was Congress that there were so many names of people who died during this time. A metaphor is a word or phrase that describes one thing being used to describe another By saying barely room he is letting us know that the number of victims is just so many. He wants us not to forget them, and to always remember this tragedy in our country. On the anniversary of September 11, this poem shall be read to Congress. The government wants use to believe that because of these attacks and our war back, that we are a stronger America. Billy Collins takes away from the message of war and focuses on what September 11th was about and whom it affected. It didn’t just affect the victims and the government; it affected every United States citizen. Ask anyone what they were doing that day, and they know.
In closing, this poem is to remind us that we are here and that we survived. It brings upon a sense of the tremendous amount of citizens, firemen, and police officers that were killed during this time. It tells us to remember within our heart that day and those who died. It asks us never to forget. It calms us to say I remember and so can you.