The September 11th attacks have not so far inspired a work of art which sums up the moment, though there have been moving tributes like Bruce Springsteen's Into the Fire.
"American poetry has yet to address the collective weight of the event," says Vijay Seshadri (48), a poet born in India who now lives in Brooklyn.
Across the Hudson River from Manhattan, New Jersey has given the world numerous noteworthy poets like Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg, and one might expect that state's current poet laureate would give it a shot. He did, but the verses about September 11th written by Amiri Baraka (67) have got him into hot water.
In a long, rambling poem, Somebody Blew Up America, which he read at a poetry festival in September, Baraka includes the following questions:
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed.
Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers to stay home that day.
Why did Sharon stay away?
New Jersey governor James E McGreevey was outraged at this reworking of a canard circulating on some websites.
No doubt he now regrets his exchange with Baraka when he recently confirmed the poet in his $10,000-a-year job as poet laureate after Baraka was nominated by a committee of poets and cultural figures.
"Governor, you're going to catch a lot of hell for this," Baraka said.
"I don't care," the governor replied.
He did, and now he does. In the face of outrage from all sides, Mr McGreevey has called for the poet's resignation. He cannot, however, simply remove Baraka since the state law provides for the selection of a poet laureate for two years.
The poet also commands respect in alternative America. He is regarded as "one of the most important African-American poets since Langston Hughes" by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Formerly known as LeRoi Jones, he has had a long career as Greenwich Village beatnik, Harlem black nationalist, Marxist and brilliant poet-playwright. He said reading the Internet convinced him that Israel knew about the attacks beforehand.
"Bush knew about it" too he asserted, and the President let it happen to get carte blanche to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq.
The 9/11 poem, which incidentally also condemns those who "put the Jews in ovens", is testimony to a deep cynicism in some sections of the African-American community.
Terrorism - from the Ku Klux Klan and skinheads - was something African-Americans have known about for a long time, said Baraka, who is refusing to resign. "Black people; we've been terrorised for years," he said.
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ANOTHER African-American lyricist expressing cynicism - this time about fellow black Americans - has been raising a few eyebrows this past week.
Harry Belafonte, the Harlem-born icon of American popular music, denounced US Secretary of State Colin Powell in a radio interview for acting like a privileged plantation slave.
"In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and there were those slaves that lived in the house," said Belafonte. "You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master . . . exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him.
"Colin Powell committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."
Belafonte, a liberal political advocate whose 1957 Banana Boat Song was a sensation, was also critical of Powell last year when the Secretary of State failed to turn up at an international conference on racism in South Africa, after a dispute over criticism of Israel, though then, asked by South African radio if Powell should resign, Belafonte said: "I think resigning is the last thing he should do. I think he should try to influence and steer his president onto the right track in terms of international and global affairs, especially as they relate to Africa and African policy."
The two men say they are friends. Both are of Jamaican descent and Powell is a big fan of calypso music. But there is history there. Powell has frequently told associates that Belafonte's calypso-style performances are "not the real thing".
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WORKING in the office at lunchtime the other day, I heard fire engines screaming outside. I went into the corridor and smelled smoke. When I pressed the lift button nothing happened. This didn't look so good. I rang the lobby and was told that there was a fire in a 30th-floor apartment, 12 storeys below me. It was a major emergency, with 12 fire trucks and 70 firefighters.
Rescue workers had to smash down the door to rescue a neighbour called Alfred Rizzolo, who today lies critically ill in hospital with lung damage from smoke. Fortunately, the fire did not spread, though his apartment was destroyed. Rizzolo was working in the World Trade Centre the day it was attacked.
Since then he has struggled with emotional problems, according to other tenants. He lived alone and had become almost a recluse. Most people in the building regard him now as another victim of September 11th.
Many people affected by the attacks have suffered severe depression and withdrawal symptoms. There have even been a number of reported suicides. Six New York firefighters were hospitalised for psychiatric problems, and one fireman in New York is known to have killed himself.
"There are a high number of people suffering stress in this city and most are not getting treated," said Dr Roy Lubit, a psychiatrist at St Vincent's Medical Hospital in lower Manhattan.
The impact of the trauma depended on the level of exposure, such as the loss of someone close or seeing grotesque things, and "the ones at highest risk are those with no support system", he said.
"As time passes they can go further downhill and withdraw from friends and family." Like an infected wound, it can get worse and worse without therapy.
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MEANWHILE the official death toll for the World Trade Centre attacks have been revised downward yet again. The tally now stands at 2,797, compared to 6,700 two weeks after the attacks when thousands of people were mistakenly reported missing, and 2,801 on the anniversary last month.
Three more people thought to have been killed have turned up alive, and one victim was found to be listed twice.
Nickola Lampley (24), of Brooklyn, worked four blocks from the trade centre and went out of town after the attack, during which time her sister, Alecia, reported her missing. The name was never taken off the list.
Nickola was watching the anniversary ceremony on television at home on Brooklyn when suddenly her mother, Jacqueline Fortune said, she yelled: "Why did they put my name on TV? I'm alive."
The revisions may not yet be complete. One man is on it because his mother said he was missing, but his whereabouts had been unknown since six months before the attacks. And the fate of Paul Herman Vanvelzer and his two children, Edward (11 months) and Barrett (4), from Long Island, has become one of the enduring mysteries of 9/11. Vanvelzer's mother in California reported them missing but there is no record of him working at the trade centre and it is not clear if the family were ever there.