Comments on:

By: jeannine

jeannine — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 04:27:00 +0000

Thanks Tamara and Joannie for your very helpful comments!

By: Joannie

Joannie — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:19:00 +0000

Good for you! I think it’s especially important considering the resurgence of nuclear power as an (ahem) alternative energy source (?) and the fact that, after the end of the Cold War, people stopped thinking about nuclear dangers in general–not that those dangers went away. I, too, shy away from writing political poetry because it seems so easy to end up with a rant that is either preaching to the choir or trying to hit someone over the head (that old holier-than-thou trap). But on occasion, I convince myself that the price of silence is too great not to try. Good luck with it, and I hope that I get to read your enviro poems sometime.

By: Cipolline

Cipolline — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:37:00 +0000

J9
I can’t wait to read what you’ve got. Apocalyptic nuclear themes are also early territory for me (my father was part of a team of scientists who invented some sort of nuclear waste containment system for air transport; he was a ceramics engineer at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, 2 miles from where I was born). Bill Witherup’s book of poems, “Downwind, Downriver,” is an excellent example of political poetry that sings, and his subjects, among others, relate to living (and dying) in Richland near the nuke rez. Really, if you were born and raised in the state of Washington in the last half of the 20th century, you are a downwinder even if you didn’t live in the TriCities (Pasco, Richland, Kennewick)…all the alfalfa that fed all the dairy cows in the state came from there, so if you ever drank milk that was produced from any Washington state dairy, well…you get the picture. Hey, you can borrow my copy of BW’s book, if you like. —Tamara