It was a September day, and our nation was under attack. Famous landmarks were smoldering in ruin, and our national resolve was being put to the test. In the midst of this bleak situation, a poet took up his pen and put into words that feelings that many Americans were wrestling with at the time. The poet’s name was Francis Scott Key. On September 14, 1814, he wrote a poem about the British bombardment of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry and the American defense of the fort. He called his poem “The Defense of Fort McHenry,” but we know it as “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Sometimes it takes poets to put into words our feelings when facing moments of crisis. One such moment was September 11, 2001. Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, Joseph Bathanti, a former North Carolina Poet Laureate, and David Potorti, a co-founder of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, co-edited a poetry anthology titled Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath. The anthology includes works by poets from across North Carolina, including many poets from the Charlotte area. The contributors to this anthology all responded to the destruction associated with 9/11 by creating poetry. Some of their poems are about loss—the loss of loved ones, the loss of landmarks, the loss of a sense of security. Some of their poems are about the personal experiences of the poets on that tragic day. Some of the poems are reflections on how the events of 9/11 have changed our lives, beliefs, and values.
I am pleased to report that the Charlotte Center for the Literary Arts, more commonly known as Charlotte Lit, is sponsoring a public reading of some of these poems. This reading will take place on September 11, 2026. I contacted Paul Reali, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Charlotte Lit, and asked him for more information about this poetry reading. Here is what he sent to me:
Five years ago, on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Press 53 released a remarkable anthology, Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath. The volume, edited by Joseph Bathanti and David Potorti, featured 116 poets from across North Carolina, reflecting on a defining moment in American history.
In September 2021, Charlotte Lit was privileged to host one of the statewide readings, hearing a dozen of the contributors read their works to a rapt (and masked) audience at Charlotte Lit’s original home on Central Avenue.
On this September 11th, the 25th anniversary of the attacks, we are again honored to host a new night of readings from Crossing the Rift by a dozen Charlotte-area poets, hosted by Bathanti (co-editor, contributor, and former state poet laurate). The stellar lineup includes Ann Campanella, Christopher Davis, Irene Blair Honeycutt, Stephen Knauth, Tootsie O’Hara, Alan Michael Parker, Diana Pinckney, Lew Powell (reading for the late Dannye Romine Powell), David Radavich, Gilda Morina Syverson, Richard Allen Taylor, and Dede Wilson.
Much has happened in the five years since Crossing the Rift was published, but as Bathanti writes in an upcoming Charlotte Lit blog post, “we find ourselves, in so many ways, exactly where we were as a nation,” still shaped by 9/11 and its aftermath. “In fact, it’s very easy to argue that we are currently in a much more precarious, seemingly out-of-control and utterly surreal place. Thus, Crossing the Rift remains vital (au courant), with its voices calling out for peace, civility, tolerance, love, hope, and human dignity.”
Everyone is welcome to join us at Charlotte Lit’s Uptown studio Friday, September 11, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. for this evening of poetry and remembrance. Free, with registration requested at https://charlottelit.configio.com/nc-poets-remember
I thank Paul for providing me with this information about Charlotte Lit’s upcoming evening of poetry and remembrance. I also thank the poets who will be participating in this event for sharing their responses to 9/11 with all of us here in Storied Charlotte.