Hallucinations in Post-9/11 American Poetry

Abstract

This article seeks to enlarge the scope of the current scholarly discussion on the trauma-related or, more precisely, ‘belated’ aspect of post-9/11 American literature through a focus on hallucinatory experiences in post-9/11 American poetry, and through the application of the information-processing models of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to the interpretation of these experiences. To attain this purpose, the article focuses on four poems – ‘High Haunts’ by Tish Eastman, ‘The Dead Have Stopped Running’ by Matthew Mason, ‘Making Love after September 11, 2001’ by Aliki Barnstone and ‘Strangers’ by Lucille Lang Day – all of which were included in An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 and September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond, two of the major anthologies of 9/11 poems that came into being in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. This article, finally, attempts to discover a poetic strategy to conquer the trauma of 9/11 at the personal level.