ABSTRACT
Trauma has played a role in the poetry of many historical eras. The terrorist attack on that fateful autumn day can be framed as a turning point of modern history, or as a collective trauma of the United States, but it is also remarkable for the way in which disaster became a global spectacle. Large-scale wars and other traumatizing conflicts have involved innumerable fatalities, and even more personal and hidden traumas tend to engage with loss at some level. Large-scale wars and other traumatizing conflicts have involved innumerable fatalities, and even more personal and hidden traumas tend to engage with loss at some level. The implicit argument was that while the confessional poets presented unsolved losses, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Theodore Roethke and other contemporary poets worked through this loss in aesthetic acts of “traumatic repetition”.
