11 września 2001 w poezji (Szymborska, Lipska, Hartwig)
September 11th , 2001 in Poetry (Szymborska, Lipska, Hartwig)

Summary/Abstract: The article relates to the events of September 11th, 2001 recorded in the poems by Wisława Szymborska, Ewa Lipska, and Julia Hartwig. The date indicates as well as encodes the dramatic events connected with World Trade Center terrorist attack. It can be interpreted and described using Jacques Derrida’s term “shibboleth.” The arrangement of the poems under analysis reveals a temporal aspect expressing a different distance to the tragedy, namely “here and now” (Szymborska), “shortly after” (Lipska) and “some time later” (Hartwig). In Szymborska, the medium of photography determines the verbal projections of images, while literature settles the photography’s scope of reference. The photography, to continue, can be seen as a fake ekphrasis. Referring to the methods of communication about the events in question, Lipska juxtaposes two perspectives, namely the vision (per)formed in mass media and by various social commentators, and that of an ordinary man (a tailor). Both form contrasting commentaries on the reality. Hartwig’s poem does not indicate its connections to September 11th, 2001; it is only later that the presented lyrical situation and geographical-topographical details allow for the disclosure. “Wieże (Towers)” prompt into reflection on the absence of those monumental buildings in New York’s urban landscape which, when destroyed, caused the deaths of many people. The poetics of eye and memory is a literary restoration of the old picture as well as everyday habits after the disaster. The poetic experience of the date is realised with different creative strategies, all of them being the results of searching for the modes of speaking about the tragedy. Three poems shape a shibboleth composition with the date in its semantic centre.

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