NOTES ON THE ATTA POEM

The ATTA POEM was written in September 2001, for a performance in October with Virgil Moorefield (who did the music) in Vienna. I didn’t set out to write about the WTC, but at the time there was simply nothing else one could think about. The poem combines most of the Muslim call to prayer with words that are like the verbal equivalent of shaking one’s head in disbelief.

The Muslim call to prayer is in Arabic. The parts used go like this:

• Allahu Akbar (4x)
  Not “God is great,” as usually translated, but “God is the greatest”
  
  
• Ashhadu alla ilaha illal-lah (2x)
  “I bear witness that Allah is the only god”
  
  
• Ashhadu anna Muhammad-ar-Rasool lal-lah (2x in the original)
  “I bear witness that Muhammad is God’s messenger”
  
  
• Hayya ‘alal-falah (2x)
  “Look forward to salvation”

(Crescent moon emerging from the heart of darkness)*

Yeah when you woke up this morning man
a whole ’nother world began
You woke up this morning man and
you began it all

You been watching us
You been one of us
Yeah now it’s time
Yeah now it’s time to separate,
Shadow American

How did you sleep?

When you were following the river
When you were following the river
When you were following the river
you were following the call

Eleven is your number / one next to one
Eleven is your number / One by one,
yeah when you walk
you walk on glass
you walk on metal
you walk on aviation fuel
you welcome fire

(Crescent moon emerging from the heart of darkness)

*This is a ghost line; it is not said, but should be thought as the piece begins.

Emily XYZ

ATTA POEM mp3 (4 mb, 3:29 min)
Click on the title here to download a full-fidelity mp3 file of the Atta Poem. (To save it to your hard disk, right-click or command-click.)

music © 2001 virgil moorefield
words © 2001 emily xyz

Photo by Jon Adolphe/NYC, used by permission of Emily XYZ

Emily XYZ writes lots of pieces intended to be performed by two voices & has been reading her poetry with Myers Bartlett (the other person in the photograph above) for oh... about ten years now. You can read & listen to her work online:

• “Sinatra Walks Out” (in MP3 and RealAudio formats) at Salon Audio/MP3Lit
• “Slot Machine” in The United States of Poetry & at Princeton Sound Kitchen Internet radio show
• “Childhood” in Sensitive Skin, Issue 1
• “John” in Sensitive Skin, Issue 2
• “Thank You for Shopping at Fairway” in the first edition of POeP
• “Michigan Boys” & “Voice of God” in Verbal Abuse
• Trax from her CD Electric Magistrate at her own site, www.emilyxyz.com