We Too Are Alive: Poems After And Before 9/11/01

Profits from sales to be donated to the Uniformed Firefighters Widows' And Children's Fund.

When we can speak in no other way, many find expression through the transforming pow er of poetry. Thousands across the U.S. have sent their poems to the NYC memorials an d firehouses. NYC writer/film-maker Amy Greenfield's "We Too Are Alive" is the first book of poetry published in response to 9/11, with intimate diary entries telling us how she was inspired to write by these memorials, finding that which is positive even in the sorrow of tragedy - a kind of bravery which former Mayor Giuliani said kept him going (and has kept so many of us going, including the poe t) after 9/11. Greenfield placed lines of the poetry, with her e-mail address, on NYC memorials to the WTC victims a week after the attack. She received responses from people who had lost loved ones on 9/11 telling her how much her words moved and gave them solace. So she wrote "We Too Are Alive" to reach and move all of us affected. All of us. "We Too Are Alive" is written in large print, much as Greenfield placed lines of her poetry on the NYC memorials. The book is intensely visual, with four photographs epitomizing the memorials, including the cover photograph of a scroll written by an unknown 14 year old girl telling us to "just worry about life and how you want to live it." In addition to her own poetry the book includes an anonymous poem written by a firefighter which Greenfield found on one of those memorials, and helped to circulate among rescue workers. After wounds, "We Too Are Alive" helps us to heal through the transcendent simplicity and beauty of poetry: 'Lover s embrace safe inside stars' hallowed space of shivering/Prophecying future built fro m loss.'