What I Said
by Norman Stock (2002)
What I Said
after the terror
I went home and cried and
said how could this happen and
how could such a thing be and
why why I mean how could
anything so horrible and how could
anyone do such a thing to us and what
will happen next and how can we live now
it’s impossible to understand it’s impossible
to do anything after this and what will any of us do now and how will
we live
and how can we expect to go on after this
I said and I said this is too much to take no one can take a thing like this
after the terror yes and then I said let’s kill them.
Questions to consider:
The poem was published in a collection titled Poetry after 9/11: An Anthology of New York Poets. How does this information affect your reading of the poem?
How is the rhythm of this poem affected by its lack of punctuation?
Explain how repetition is used to contribute to the poem's tone.
Describe the shift in the final line. What does this shift suggest?
Short-Response Questions
Write a well-developed paragraph in which you use ideas from both Passage I (the poem) and Passage II (Beowulf, lines 237 to 284) to establish a controlling idea about dealing with adversity. Develop your controlling idea using specific examples and details from both Passage I and Passage II.
Choose a specific literary element (e.g., theme, characterization, structure, point of view, etc.) or literary technique (e.g., symbolism, irony, figurative language, etc.) used by one of the authors. Using specific details from either Passage I or Passage II in a well-developed paragraph, show how the author uses that element or technique to develop the passage.