Bikeman by Thomas F. Flynn
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- ISBN: 0740775596
- Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
- Pub. Date: August 2008
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Synopsis
On September 11, 2001, journalist Tom Flynn set off on his bike toward the World Trade Towers not knowing what he was riding into. Bikeman is one man's journey back to the horrors of that day and to the humanity that somehow emerged from the dust and the death. Both heartbreaking and haunting, his words will stay with you like that 'forever September morning.'" —Meredith Vieira, NBC's Today
"Tom Flynn brings to his subject three invaluable attributes: the eye of a seasoned journalist, the soul of a poet, and his stunning, first-hand experience of that horrific day.
Biography
Thomas Flynn is an award-winning television producer and writer. He explains that the style of this book formed as he re-read Dante's Inferno and began to realize how "the parallel worlds of his journey to hell and mine ran together." Flynn is married to Nancy Reardon and has a daughter, Kate. He divides his time between downtown New York City and Cape Cod.
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09/28/2008: On Sept. 11, 2001 , Thomas Flynn worked for CBS News. When the second plane hit the World Trade Center, Flynn rode his bicycle to the site as a journalist, following his muse of curiosity. ?If this coming event were a mythical beast/?my muse would not counsel caution/?but push me closer to the flame,? he writes in the third canto. Flynn uses Dante?s Inferno as inspiration for style and form in translating the unspeakable experiences of that day into free verse that allow the reader to believe he knows what it was like in lower Manhattan on what Flynn calls ?this forever September morning.? We can?t, unless we were there. And even if we were there, the interpretation of sights, sounds and smells is unique to each person experiencing them. What Flynn does is take the reader inside his experience and memory of September 11th. He takes us along on his transformation from journalist to participant. It is a first- hand account like none other that should be shared with as many people as possible. We walk next to Flynn and his bicycle as he watches the first tower collapse and during his panicked flight from the scene. We wait with him in a parking garage buried in the rubble and take every dust-laden step that carries him away the inferno. Some would likely call Flynn a survivor of the attack. He agrees, but uses a different definition. Although some may believe that poetry isn?t for everyone, that it eludes a common dominator that popular culture does not, that it is best kept for academia in its ivory towers or elitists secure in the supposition that their reading habits elevate them above the mythical common man, I don?t agree. At its best, and Flynn meets these challenges ably, poetry makes the intangible tangible. Metaphors and imagery translate the indescribable. When done well, poetry pulls you in, wrapping you in its arms of rhythm, letting meter carry you from one image to the next. It allows the words to take root in your mind and transform back into the indescribable that is now a part of you.
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