After the events of September 11, 2001, Image asked a number of writers to send reflections on that day and its aftermath. Some writers responded with poems and meditations, some with laments and even howls. Others wrote about the role of art in the wake of calamity. And still others wrote to say that they were not ready to write anything at all yet. In a sense, all of these contributions constitute an exercise in theodicy—the form of writing that seeks, in Milton’s words, to “justify the ways of God to man.” Theodicy is not a particularly popular literary form these days; it’s a task that the best writers undertake with fear and trembling, but as these contributors demonstrate, it can accommodate an astonishing variety of tones and approaches.