Station Eleven in Poems

Some things are best expressed in poetry. Others, like a warning that that snake is indeed very poisonous and to please STEP AWAY, are not.

Station Eleven, however, is something that I believe can be reviewed in verse.

I have spent some rather enjoyable hours digging through the Internet in order to piece together a poetic summary of sorts for this novel. My goal was not an exact description of the events that take place in the book, but rather to capture the overall feeling of it, by collecting fragments from different poems. Each verse is of a different poet and I take credit for nothing but assembling them (see below for sources). I now present you with my work:

Station Eleven

"Where have they gone to, brother and sister, mother and father? Off along the shore, perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,"

"what was it you

wanted us to

say after you died

it’s awful without you making sound exist

you said ponder this

but none of us can remember"

"Mourners to and fro

Kept treading - treading - till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through -"

"With stammering lips and insufficient sound

I strive and struggle to deliver right

That music of my nature, day and night

With dream and thought and feeling interwound"

"Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!

Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,

Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,"

"And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth."

Poems and poets, in order of appearance:

Morning in the Burned House - Margaret Atwood

Sharking of the Birdcage - CAConrad

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain - Emily Dickinson

The Souls Expression - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beat! Beat! Drums! - Walt Whitman

A Question - Robert Frost

This collage of poems may not make much rhythmic sense, but it captures themes of Station Eleven well. Each section has a slightly different focus; loneliness, legacy, finding purpose, the need to create, the power of art, and the appreciation of existence. Each of these is also present in Station Eleven. Selecting them forced me to consider exactly what the novel was about and develop a deeper appreciation for its underlying messages.

It was also a decent excuse for me to read a ton of great poetry.

- A.M. Ham.