Poetry of Witness

Out of the selection of poems we read, I responded the greatest to “Charlie Howard’s Descent” by Mark Doty. The poem tells a tragic story of a young man who is ridiculed and murdered, simply for being gay. The poem becomes even more grim with the knowledge that it is derived from true events. It’s hard for me to accept that someone could carry out this kind of violence because of their own ignorance and discrimination. To recall Sam Hamill, if we as a society were more educated about such issues as homosexuality, there wouldn’t be such a problem with this behavior. My favorite quote from the poem is from the last two lines of the piece, “In the way that only the dead/can afford to forgive” (Doty lines 53-54). Is Doty suggesting the only way you can truly forgive is through death? Or is he suggesting that it’s not worth while to forgive? From what I’ve tasted of wrong doing, I’d have to agree with the first part.
The second poem I reacted to was “Photograph from September 11” by Wislawa Szymborska. The biggest reason I responded to this poem was because I, like so many others, have a clear memory of that day in history. What Szymborska does is describe the terror that was captured in photographs in a respectful and commemorative way. “I can do only two things for them-/describe this flight/and not add a last line”
(Szymborska lines 17-19). She is showing the victims of the attack respect by not stating the inevitability of their death. Reading this poem brought back to attention the memory and emotions of that moment. We all remember what we were doing when we learned of the attack, but what we might not remember is the fear and panic the victims felt, which is something Szymborska accomplishes well in her poem.


The man behind the poem:
http://gaylife.about.com/od/hatecrimes/a/charleshoward.htm

Image source: http://www.triple-tri.com/ttblog/index.php?m=200909