Giuseppe Conte – Ricordiamoci dell’11 settembre

The poem Ricordiamoci dell’11 settembre was written by Giuseppe Conte and was published into the collection entitled Il fuoco che produce luce e fumo, published in 2001.

The title of the composition constitutes the first point of its analysis. A statement that includes an evocative date composes it. Reading the words 11^th September the reader immediately associates the poem theme to the World Trade Centre attack, happened in 2001, the date of composition of the text. The title highlights therefore the main theme of the composition: the Twin Towers attack. Being the text a poem, it might contain some writer’s considerations and reflections about it. The first part of the title gives the intelligent reader some information about the nature of the successive reflection: the verb remember vehicles the writer’s will of recalling the event and its importance to the reader. This consideration creates some expectations in him. He may want to know why it must be remembered.

A second element of analysis is the composition’s structure. A single stanza of fifteen lines composes the poem. From the graphical point of view, it is not divided into sequences. However, a subdivision of the composition can be done looking at the punctuation marks. The poem is made up by two sentences, each making up a sequence.

The first sequence goes from line number one to line number ten. The theme of this first section is the dread caused by the attack. This feeling is underlined by the repetition of two types of sounds. In the first part the consonant r points out the American and the entire world immediate reaction to the attack, the scare and panic felt by the people immediately after the Twin Towers collapse. The building protagonists of the reflection are directly cited in the second line, in the key position at the end of the verse. The second part of the sequence highlights the further reaction of the people. This is made thanks to the repetition of the vocal sounds u and o; grave and deep sounds that recall the dark and gloomy atmosphere characterizing New York in particular time after the event. The second part of the first section also summarizes all the different reactions of the people: the noun Inferi allows the reader to understand completely the American situation also time after the tragedy, and the entire word’s one.

The second section of the poem constitutes the exposition of the writer’s will as regards the remembering of the attack. He advises the reader to rely on prayer and would like a return to religion, even if the cause of the tragedy was just a particular branch of Islam. The narrator suggests the reader to prey his own god, if he is a merciful one. However, the reader can notice an opposition between two different types of gods: the word Dio is repeated. The first time it indicates the God that the speaking voice wants the reader to prey, the second one it stands for the God the interpretation of whose words caused the World Trade Centre attack, the Inferi of the first section of the poem. Finally the noun bambino, at the end of the last line, underlines again the need for peace and innocence that the narrator wants to convey with the composition.

The two sequences are bund by the initial repetition of the statement Ricordiamoci dell’11 settembre, the same words composing the title and constituting the core of the poem.

The initial question finds now an answer: we have to remember the 11^th September because of the horror, the fear of that day, not to do again something similar, to be united in spite of cultural and religious differences. The message of the composition is indeed the need of remembering the disaster to find a new peace in the world despite all that happened.