THE INTERRUPTED SKY by David Lawrence

David’s The Interrupted Sky reflects the pain of the unforgettable tragedy of the September 11 attacks. A huge ocean of tears engulfs the reader's mind while reading this emotional and heart-touching book. The artistic ornaments of David depict the horror of the attacks through his poetry. A feeling of compassion comes out of the verse in which the poet has given much emphasis to the people who were bound to jump from the burning twin towers due to the inhuman plane crash. Poor people, who didn’t have a choice except for escaping out of there in a hurry and attempting an involuntary suicidal attempt.     

In Woman Falling, the reader can sense the compassionate behavior of the poet. The thoughts reveal an aggressive impulse inside the poet’s soul to save the people who got stuck in there. Through the following impressive lines, he shows up an impressive move to teach God the agony and pain of death, and other things still exist much better than death thereby devastating the false or absurd claims of other rigid religions. 

I want to tug the woman falling from the cruelness of other’s rigid

religions and teach God that there are nicer things than death.  

I don’t know her. I just want to save her. Maybe that makes me a

chip off God’s shoulder.

It is wonderful to see that the poet has included a poem about The Falling Man (a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew of a man falling from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks in New York City). The poet aptly asks the reader in the opening “Was it worth death to become famous in the horror of his horror?” Moreover, the poem expresses the doomed circumstance when the people had no other choice except for either of the way both resulting in death. 

His family said that he wouldn’t have jumped because suicide would

have been the betrayal of his religion.

As if choosing jumping rather than burning was a different form of

suicide. The choice has no upside. The result is upside down.

In White Dust, the poet visits his son’s apartment situated next to the World Trade Center and describes the aftermath of the destruction when he states “There was a lot of white dust everywhere”. No doubt the poet was badly affected by this tragedy as he says “I put some in my mouth so I could taste what it was like to die, dry mouthed, speechless”. He wants to experience the pain and the compulsion which was on the people therein, knowing the fact it would not be easy to do but still, he did taste the white dust entailing all the sentiments. 

In The Literary Agent on 9/11, the poet mentions that he was on a bus headed to Fortieth Street to visit a literary agent when he sees black smoke coming up from the Twin Towers. At that time, he could not refer to it as an act of jihadists and assumed that a Piper would have hit the building therefore, he regrets and says “I didn’t realize that what I really needed was a plan to fight jihadists”. The interview doesn’t go well due to the various distractions but in the end, the poet concludes that his book with the literary agent was a small thing when the attack of 9/11 was being written by God.

On 9/11 I was heading in a bus down Lexington Ave to Fortieth

Street to visit a literary agent who I wanted to represent me for my

book.

I looked out the front window of the bus and saw black smoke

coming from high up on the World Trade Tower.

All the passengers wondered what it was? We figured maybe it

was a Piper Cub that hit the building.

The Interrupted Sky recalls every significant detail of 9/11 and emotively delivers the poet’s thoughts and visions to the reader. Interrupted Sky is imbued with a sensational collection of poetry that enlightens and arouses emotion on the September 11 attacks. 

                                                                                                                                                                     --- Rochak Agarwal