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January 31, 2006
The World Trade Center
Lehman, ''The World Trade Center'' (1996) -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
This poem by David Lehman seemed to me to be of lesser quality than the Frost poems we have reviewed. It is like Lehman just jotted down his feelings about something without putting great thought or detail into what he was writing. The first thing I thought about this poem was that you do not realize the true value of something until it is almost taken away or gone. Then as I read it for a second time I realized that maybe he did not truly learn to appreciate the value of the world trade center but because it became a more popular building and more famous after being bombed, he was now following the opinions of others as his own. He starts the poem saying,
"I never liked the World Trade Center..."
and In the middle claims...
"Until that Friday afternoon in February
When the Bomb went off and the buildings became
A great symbol of America..."
It seems like the speaker of this poem now says he believes that buildings to have some value because everyone else is "Ooohing and Awwing" them after they had been bombed. Does he really believe now that those buildings are as meaningful and valuable as all the other great monuments he rattles off at the end of the poem?
Posted by TerraStumpf at January 31, 2006 09:34 PM
Comments
I figure that a building doesn't automatically become a symbol as soon as it's built. Lehman mentions the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty and the George Washington Bridge, and those buildings are all special, but they've been around for a very long time, so of course they're important to us. They have history. When Lehman wrote this poem, the WTC has only been standing for 25 years. It didn't have any history, so nobody cared about it. Once they were bombed, they had some kind of history. I don't think he's so much following the crowd, I think he likes the WTC now because it has history now, it means something now.
Posted by: Megan Ritter at February 1, 2006 08:40 PM