‘The Interrupted Sky,’ a book of poems about 9/11, from Gleason’s Gym phenomenon ‘awesome’ David Lawrence
In the 20 years since September 11, 2001, David Lawrence, a highly accomplished writer who also teaches the brutal art of boxing at Gleason’s Gym in DUMBO, has produced thousands of poems published in hundreds of books and magazines.
Roughly 50 of his poems on the topic of 9/11 have now been gathered in the book The Interrupted Sky (Cyberwit.net, 2021, available on Amazon.com).
For anyone not familiar with former pro boxer “Awesome” Lawrence, The Interrupted Sky is a mesmerizing introduction to his uncensored, stream-of-consciousness, sometimes politically incorrect, often brilliant writing.
Lawrence chose the prose-poem form to make his work more accessible, he told the Brooklyn Eagle. For those of us who lived through the day’s horror, Lawrence’s poems are triggering: the towers are still smoldering and people are still jumping and falling. Like an old-time recording machine that captured sound waves in wax and faithfully reproduced them when played with a needle, Lawrence’s poetry captures and transmits the instant raw emotions of a witness to the crime. You don’t so much read the poems; you mainline confusion, sorrow, pain and anger.