Joana response to Spahr

Julianna Spahr's This Connection of Everything With Lungs was written shortly after the events of 9/11 occurred. Even though they're separated by dates, the book contains only two poems. Spahr wrote them as the events leading to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan occurred, taking many of the things she talks about from relevant news headlines that she had seen that day.

Spahr's poetry is almost basic in the way it's written. It's not entirely wrought with symbolism like most of the poets we have read so far, but it's not stripped down so that the reader has to come up with an idea of what the poem's saying on their own like we often had to do with Armantrout. There are many pop-culture references that help ground the reader in the time frame. These are things that were out-dated even when she published the book, but it doesn't really matter. These poems are specifically supposed to be talking about the years of 2001 and 2002, and so the references make sense within the context of the poems.

Another big thing in the poems is repetition and text that has the effect of repetition. At one point she is naming off all the countries that are marching in protest against the mobilization in Afghanistan, and she names several cities. These are probably cities that she was able to find in the news that were protesting, but she names them all, one right after the other. The first poem has true repetition, where the lines are repeated before adding something new several times over.

Despite the simplicity of her poems, Spahr has managed to get her point across very well. She has the kind of emotion that she should have while writing poems about an event that she isn't sure how it will end.