On today’s show we welcome Allen Ruff back to the host seat for a special remembrance of September 11. Next Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Though a quarter century has passed, the endlessly played horrific events are etched in the popular memory of the nation. To reflect on the events of 9/11, Ruff speaks with Martín Espada, award winning poet and friend of WORT.

Espada reads from his 9/11 poem, “Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100,” that focuses on the food service workers who died that day, many of them undocumented immigrants. Espada says they were invisible in life and in death, inspiring him to write this poem. He analyzes the fallout from the attacks, saying that the ensuing “War on Terror” has trickled down to the present as seen in the rhetoric of Donald Trump and his MAGA crowd. The lesson he learned is that “you can’t trade freedom for security.”

Nevertheless, the War on Terror has given the political right a vocabulary and opened the door to a stronger executive branch, the consequences of which we’re seeing in full force now. Espada says that fighting an abstraction like “terror” has only compounded the reality of endless war.

They also discuss the rise of xenophobia in the US and the dehumanization of immigrants. Espada also reads from two new poems, “The Ballad of a Cuban Salsa Band” and “Shame.”

Martín Espada is the author of more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. A former tenant lawyer in the Greater Boston area’s Latino community, he received a BA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1981 and a JD from Northeastern University in 1985. Espada previously appeared on A Public Affair to talk about his latest volume of poetry, Jailbreak of Sparrows.

Featured image of a light tribute to the Twin Towers from 2005 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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