NC Poets on 9/11: Two Poems by Ione O’Hara
Davidson writer and teacher Ione O’Hara was awarded an Arts and Science Council artist grant as well as a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught writing at UNC Charlotte, Central Piedmont Community College, and at Queens University’s Life Long Learning Center. Her chapbook, A Passing Certainty, was published by Pudding House Publications.
Romance-speaking peoples found no nearer equivalent than “werra,”—v.
to bring into confusion or discord. –Chambers Dictionary of Etymology
Before its name
it was
a human enterprise
spinning words
toward dictionaries
war crime, war dance, warfare,
war paint, warship, war horse,
warpath, warplane, war zone
1991 – n. of confused pride:
“Didja see how we kicked
some major ass in the Gulf?”
9/11/2001– n. of conflict
from werra,
root also for worst
adj. of superlative degree
flashing in sunlight.
A woman knocks
on a neighbor’s door
with a basket of tomatoes
from the garden.
A team hurls
bowling balls down the alley,
pins crashing.
A father holds a photo high,
a firefighter digs in debris.
Floating from the ashes,
war, from werra
settles,
comfortable on the President’s lips.
In a Manhattan bookstore
outdated post cards revolve on a rack,
New York City’s skyline spinning.
after The Charlotte Observer, March 20, 2009
A son is born
Harb they call him
Arabic for war
tenderly his mother holds
this difficult word
quaking the earth
at Baghdad dawn
first explosions
light the landscape
windows vibrate
again it’s March
he is six
never a birthday party
afternoon at a playground
or once upon a time
he’s seen a man burning
stared into the face
of a Sunni gunned down
look Baba poor man
old enough to imagine
a happier ending
concertina wire
snakes the city
a friend’s blown to pieces
how many more
birthdays the same
Taqawi they call him
nickname given
by an older brother
a name with no meaning
(These poems are previously unpublished.)
3 Responses to “NC Poets on 9/11: Two Poems by Ione O’Hara”
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Informative, wrenching and beautiful,Ione.
Fascinating poem on all the names for war combined with all the different images and a perfect lead in to the next poem about the boy in Baghdad. He is so real, so heart-breakingly real.
You have such a gift of touching into humanity, and you express it here so beautifully with these two poems on war. Imagine (and you have) a poem on “A Boy Named War,” and it follows so perfectly your poem on “War, a Word.”