a journal on the writer's role in society edited by esther altshul helfgott Contributors are invited to address the question: What is the writer's responsibility to self & society? |
Jonathan Harrington was an eyewitness to the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Jonathan's poems have appeared in Green River Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, South Florida Poetry Review, English Journal, Epitaph, Slant, Black Bear Review, and many other publications. He has published one chapbook: Handcuffed to the Jukebox. In addition to poetry, Jonathan edited an anthology of short stories: New Visions: Fiction by Florida Writers, authored a collection of essays, Tropical Son: Essays on the Nature of Florida, and has published three mystery novels, The Death of Cousin Rose, The Second Sorrowful Mystery, and A Great Day for Dying. His fourth novel, Saint Valentine's Diamond, will be published in February 2002. Jonathan lives in New York City with his wife, Wren, and their son, Trevor. |
Jonathan Harrington was an eyewitness to the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Jonathan's poems have appeared in Green River Review, Kentucky Poetry Review, South Florida Poetry Review, English Journal, Epitaph, Slant, Black Bear Review, and many other publications. He has published one chapbook: Handcuffed to the Jukebox. In addition to poetry, Jonathan edited an anthology of short stories: New Visions: Fiction by Florida Writers, authored a collection of essays, Tropical Son: Essays on the Nature of Florida, and has published three mystery novels, The Death of Cousin Rose, The Second Sorrowful Mystery, and A Great Day for Dying. His fourth novel, Saint Valentine's Diamond, will be published in February 2002. Jonathan lives in New York City with his wife, Wren, and their son, Trevor. |
SURVIVORS After the splinters of shattered glass are swept away, the rubble trucked off, the compromised buildings propped up or bulldozed down. After the scattered fingers have been raked together, sorted by size into plastic baggies to be fingerprinted, and the ashes of the dead poured into urns, their graves shoveled over with contaminated earth. After the sky has been hoisted up with cranes and pulleys and nailed back into place. After the sun has been repaired and the planets arranged once more in their proper orbits when the stars begin to twinkle again, however faintly. What seamstress will suture our torn hearts? When will the garish flash of mass murder seared onto our minds the way light burns photographic plates finally begin to fade like the portraits made from them already yellowing in dark drawers? Where will the children turn for blessings And to whom? YESTERDAY, A LONG TIME AGO "Daddy, do you remember yesterday, a long time ago?" -Trevor Harrington, age 4 Do you remember yesterday, a long time ago? The sun shone brightly, the changing leaves still clung to their branches, children climbed monkey bars, their laughter ringing on playgrounds. Now all those yesterdays rush away behind us like bait thrown in the wake of a speeding boat disappearing, snatched by the sharks of history. Do you remember yesterday, a long time ago before the Towers fell before fighter jets patrolled the airspace over Manhattan and stealth bombers disgorged their horrible ordnance over Kabul? I remember laughter, back then. I remember singing. Yesterday, a long time ago. copyright 2001 Jonathan Harrington |
Two Poems by Jonathan Harrington |
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a journal on the writer's role in society edited by esther altshul helfgott Contributors are invited to address the question: What is the writer's responsibility to self & society? |
