[the Writing of Kuypers]    [JanetKuypers.com]    [Bio]    [Poems]    [Prose]

Listen to the DMJ Art Connection

Listen: (5:20) to this recording from Fusion

Watch the YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem from her book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab at the open mike 4/11/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago (accompanied by live piano music from Gary)

Watch the YouTube video of Kuypers’ open mike 4/11/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, plus the entire open mike, w/ this poem (w/ music from the HA!man of South Africa, & piano from Gary)

Watch this Youtube video of Janet Kuypers reading this poem 5/18/13 “September 11, 2001” in Nashville TN in the Tag Team feature reading

Watch this Youtube video of the Janet Kuypers & C Ra McGuirt “Tag Team” 1+ hour feature in Nashville 5/18/13 (which includes this poem)

Download this in a free 5/18/13 chapbook the Tag Team Reading, of poems slated for the Janet Kuypers/C Ra McGuirt book “Tag Team Poets”

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems bored the night before 9/11, and September 11, 2001 at Poetry’s “Love Letter” in Chicago 9/11/15 Cfs200).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems bored the night before 9/11 and September 11, 2001 at Poetry’s “Love Letter” in Chicago 9/11/15 Cps).

September 11, 2001 i remember my husband getting ready for work and i walked to the tv in the den and i thought he was watching a movie he said, i don’t think this is a movie i think the world trade center has been struck and we stared at the television and watched a plane fly into the second tower and then watched the towers collapse i can’t even remember if my husband went to work that day as i just stared at the tv it took two days to get through to everyone     my friend and one brother-in-law     rescheduled Pentagon meetings and we tried to call his sister in shanksville pennsylvania     our nephew heard news reports     say this if flight ninety-three     landed thirty seconds later     the plane would have hit his school my brother-in-law in new jersey     was supposed to be     in the world trade centers     for meetings that day     but you see, he decided     not to go to the meeting lucky him and i remember watching the tv like i was some sort of zombie thinking this was bigger then Pearl Harbor, more people died, this wasn’t a military base, i had to do something     maybe i could go there     i’d traveled around     the country by car before     i could drive this     maybe i could stay     with my husband’s brother in jersey     and train into manhattan my husband couldn’t go, he had to go to work so i took off on my own, paid the tolls on i eighty even forgot my camera got to his brother’s place after one in the morning he told me what train to take, but said half of the subway lines have to be closed so i trained from jersey as far as I could but I couldn’t get close but i thought, i walked seven miles to work that’s no problem and hour and a half i can do that i thought i could buy an instant camera at some small shop on my walk to ground zero and maybe i could take a film canister so i could collect some of the building dust     because someone gave me ashes     from the mount saint helen’s eruption     and i thought,     i lived through this     i should bring something back with me     i should     i should something but every store was closed when i tried to walk anywhere that day and everything was congested businesses seem closed, but you still couldn’t go anywhere so over four hours later i got to ground zero i was wearing gym shoes and jeans had a bottle of sealed water in my back pack purse and wanted to get in to try to help i don’t know, to shovel things out of the way, to something but no one had maps of where everything was there were so many people there trying to help that they told me that the best way i could help was to just clear the way so people could do their jobs and i just stepped back, unable to do anything,     unable to collect anything,     unable to photograph anything, only able to stare, like i was watching it on my tv ### i used only lowercase writing this even when i said “i” i’m only lowercase when i watched the news on that first day they showed people jumping out the windows     these silhouettes of people     looked like floating paper     in a ticker tape parade     in all the debris floating around     i had to keep telling myself,     “these are people” and when i looked around at all of the remains from these towering office buildings i thought of the dust i was breathing in i thought i’m breathing in drywall i’m breathing in paperwork i’m breathing in people so yes, i’m only lowercase after what i’ve seen around me i’m nothing

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