A______

A book and its 19 concomitant sadnesses, contained, evicted, born hollow, affected in reverse: butterfly moth regression, travesty that I did not see it for what it was: base. Some evils irreparable and the only vengeance, peace A decade more of girlhood – you were a flood, September 11th, the first bookend coda mastermind: not enough words in the sea to describe this city, this moment in time where the eyes vacate the face. I am learning: a decade more of the mouth Absinthe abacus boy Abysmal, ornery, aliment Address Addiction Adrenal and arboreal: aerate

Balance

B______

Bang

Battle

Beautiful, girl, see ‘not anymore’

Berlin Wall – I was born the week it tumbled. Brick and stone shatter. Hell is a place in the modern world. I am not born breech today. Small wonder that I have survived this long at all: 18, 19, 20. In the past now. It is rarely clear to me what might be in the past now. Unfortunate present: 1989, 2001, 2011— a strange conglomeration of years yet I am not sure that I want to forget them, horrors and all, exploded buildings and all

Birth

Bitter

Blast – like firefight midnight warrior. Of metal. Of plane into metallic skull. Of building.

A million explosive things between me and New York

Blessing

Blur – of photograph,

of blood streaking quickly across fractured frame of vision,

of the entire bottom of Manhattan, as if she is sinking

back into ocean from whence she came.

Ten years later and I cannot see out of my own body into the world

and I count my veins but I will

never know the opacity of blood,

deranged and thrombophyllic, sanguine,

harmonic, holy, depth, death. Blood

built right into this page

From the back of the book:

Caronae Howell’s Index for September 11th teaches us how to keep steady in a world full of simultaneous wonder and violence. A switchboard of synaptical loss, this is a book which accumulates both personal and collective memory, a glimpse into an archive of survival.

            — Ching-In Chen, 2019 Judge, Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry

In this deeply innovative debut, Howell explores a truth often lost around September 11th: it was experienced collectively and — for each person — alone. She writes, ‘You don’t go telling me how to throb / You don’t go telling me / where I was on the morning or / what I felt or / how I came to the skeleton all unbuttoned, / undone, naked, queasy: the last girl to mourn.’ And then, ‘An entire adolescence exploded in a building,’ a premise on which the book follows through. This collection transcends time and plunges into narratives of loneliness, desire, identity, resilience, and family lore. Howell’s eye for the real story is all encompassing, and her command of language is awe inspiring.   
            — Jon Sands, author of It’s Not Magic

Index for September 11th is full of unexpected, piercing lines that evoke recognition and awe in a cartography of disaster, desire, and coming of age. Howell brilliantly cleaves and alchemizes to make sense of the profound wreckage of September 11th in this love song turned spell turned litany. Unafraid to name, confess, and yearn, Howell’s book brings loss close to our faces in order to evoke the love and bravery of daring to live through disaster.      — Arhm Choi Wild