Artists Registry

I was 6- or 7-years-old and in Ghana when the 9/11 attacks happened; I do not have a single recollection of hearing or seeing coverage of it until I came to the U.S. at age 12. But even after coming here each anniversary of the attacks saw me commemorating in an emotionally-distanced and passive manner (always somber, to be sure, but distanced all the same).

Things changed on the 18th anniversary (2019). On this particular anniversary I felt a deep sense of heaviness and sadness, as if I had witnessed the attacks first-hand or lost someone to it--this lasted the whole day. Days later the heaviness was rekindled following a conversation in which 9/11 briefly came up. At this juncture I researched all the major ways in which people suffered (and still suffer) from the event and attempted to write a poem about it. "Heaviness" is the end result of that attempt (many thanks to Lou Gallo for his role as literary consultant on the poem).