Today, on this 73rd anniversary of Hiroshima

Today, on this 73rd anniversary of Hiroshima, I can't stop weeping. It's as if all the atrocities of the world have come home to roost. Fat Man, and Little Boy. I touched the cold green casings of their brethren at Los Alamos and wept. Green, the color of life, and, hell on earth. People's shadows etched into concrete for eternity. It makes me weep now, just thinking of it. My mother's cousin was a mathematician for the Manhattan Project, so Los Alamos was one of her addresses, only the government denied its existence, so postcards to her aunt, my grandmother, were delivered from New Mexico, no address. We found this out after she had died of cancer. It was a well-kept secret. Say the names. Stallion Gate. Alamagordo. Los Alamos. Say Trinitite. Come to an understanding of that unholy fused green glass blooming in the white sands. The illusion of thousands of paper cranes floating on the breeze, like at Manzanar. I keep one by my bed to ward off dreams. A memento mori for the past that we cannot change. Nor recover from. Nor should we. It's as if the grief has settled in my breast. Today I have taken baby steps, and have begun what is called in Sweden, dostadning, or death cleaning, to decrease the burden of footprint, and self, as everything is finite. Even the veiled green tears of grief.

After Hearing Gary Snyder Read on the Autumn Equinox, photos

September 20: After teaching Sonoma County History at Elderhostel at Silverpenny Farms, I went into Copperfield's Books to get more material on California Indians—Miwok, and Pomo. There were posters of Gary Snyder all over the store, people purchasing tickets for tonight's benefit event sponsored by the Sonoma County Land Trust.

I look over at a bookshelf, Gary Snyder's in the house. What's funny, is that everybody's importantly confiding to their neighbors—You know I heard Snyder read at... blah blah blah. And no one even knows it's him—practically standing right in front of them. It's as if he were a ghost. I can see him just fine. But apparently no one else can. They carry on. We smirk.

Gary's aged quite a bit since I last saw him. He's more washed out. I went up introduced myself again, hating to have to use those tags. I said by way of introduction, "I was the one who took the photo of you and Will Staple at the Maui Zendo....

Gary, says Oh yes! And reminisces about Aitken Roshi, trying to pinpoint this date. I say, It was the Deep Ecology Conference. He says, you look about the same. How are you? (A non-sequitor.) It's been ten years or more since Maui.

I asked Gary about the event last Saturday evening at San Geronimo Valley Art Center. When I drove by, there were hundreds of cars parked along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It was a zoo. I asked, So, was it a benefit? He said, No it was an event in honor of Kenneth Rexroth. We hiked up to his cabin where he used to write at, and me dictate.…

I interrupted Gary because he'd already slipped into his teacher mode. I said, I grew up there. But Gary's on a roll, he's teaching me about the park, etc. I blurt, My grandfather knew Kenneth Rexroth, but Snyder drones on… And Samuel P. Taylor Park, he says, There's a place called Devil's Gulch… I say, Yes, I know it well, my grandfather used to hike over Mt. Barnabe to visit him…

By the third interruption, I'm frustrated, and Gary finally begins to listen, realizing that I already knew all that information. A regular case of coals to Newcastle. I don't tell him the reason why I became a writer was because when he had read a poem about my ridges, from Manzanita, at Olney Hall, College of Marin, and got the directions all wrong, that was when I began to write. I said, I can do that. And so I did.

I wanted the new stuff— like the how and the why…what it was like to be back in Devil's Gulch after so many years. The cabin is long gone. I wanted a real conversation, not tapes on autopilot.

Perhaps I'm a bit put off by Gary because he continually is cold to those he doesn't know well, especially the women. I remember being hurt by his curtness a few years back, and I told Will Staple about it, who immediately turned around and reacquainted me with Snyder. Snyder suddenly was all very warm and receptive—especially since Philip Whalen, whom I'd known for years, was there, warmly greeting me with enthusiasm.

I guess it all boils down to the company you keep. I hate the fact that I even have to attach myself to men poets in order to get remembered. Where are the women on the Bearshit Trail, indeed? Snyder is a cold fish but we manage a few more civilities. He said he was just browsing around, checking out this book, and turns back to the bookstacks. I step out into sunlight, crispness in the air. First day of Fall.

After the poetry reading, Gary was available for book signing. I'd already bought Axe Handles to be signed, but I couldn't find my other books, some were first editions. We chitchatted a bit, and that was that. Awkward. I'm tired of trying to connect with Gary Snyder.

21st of September: Last night, some 300 to 400 people must've turned up to hear Gary Snyder read at Analy High School. I got there at 6:30 and already it was filling fast. They delayed the reading to get everyone seated, even in the balcony. I forgot my journal and resorted to writing on scraps, notes to the unconscious.

Gary read from No Nature: New and Selected Poems. It incorporates almost all his early work. Awesome collection. He opened with a poem I'd never heard before, Song of the Taste. Very erotic. I like to the anecdotal stories prefacing each of the poems, I like the context. Hay for the Horses, an old favorite, Manzanita, and Riprap. He reads from Cold Mountain. Li Po is invoked. Axe Handles—Fenceposts. Word Basket Woman, a poem I use in the classroom when I teach poetry to kids.

A clear, attentive mind
has no meaning but that
which sees is truly seen.
—from Piute Creek

He said the impetus of For/From Lou came from a dream. The circumstances of Lew's death are as follows: Lou Welch disappeared back in 1973 in the Sierra Nevadas. He was he was camping on my land. He didn't come to dinner that night. We went searching for him and found the suicide note in his van. We searched but found nothing, never a word, never a bone. He had told us that he was going to do it.

Now, 12-year-old boys are still searching for Lew's a skull. He's become the friendly ghost poet. For Lew Welch in a Snowfall, also came from a dream, said Snyder.

He talked about writing prose, how it's hard work. With prose, you have to flagellate yourself. He says, It's a call to arms. He says, Don't let right-wingers steal the word, or ethics from us.

He tells us creation stories about Turtle Island, the enduring name, not USA, not America, he talks about the longview. He told a wonderful story about friends of the LA River. A bunch of poets and musicians thought that the river was lonely, all culverted up, so one night they all went down to the river to read it some poems, They played it music to cheer it up.

Word got out, folks began joining them for the readings, and they found themselves organizing into action committee. When the Sacramento folks heard about it, they came calling too. Now local neighborhoods are turning their houses around, and turning everything around to face the river. 

(See my four pages of notes)

After the reading Gary was available for book signing. I brought Axe Handles again but I couldn't find my other books, they were first editions too. Snyder was very warm to me on the second meeting. he drew me a picture of a man on the title page, and on No Nature, he wrote: To Maureen – fellow poet… closure.

Lee, who's a rare book dealer, says that signature is worth something because it's to me, and it refers to me as a poet. I also had Gary sign Atomic Ghost, he had two poems. 

I told him I put on a reading for the anthology and that I was in it too. I gave Gary copies of Mother Earth Journal, as he has a poem in it called Word Basket Woman, and I suspect that he sent it to us before it was published. I also gave him the complete Mother Earth collection. He bowed and thanked me.

I asked if he still wanted a collection of my kid poetry books too and he said: I do, I do. He has several of my anthologies already. He says when he gets a big stack of children's poetry, he wants to do an essay on it. I tell him it's sorely needed. 

Earlier, Lee Perron told me how he had given Snyder a book of his, only to find it in a used bookstore with his inscription on it, weeks later. We discussed how Snyder can be so cold just like that! Turns out his mother lived in Petaluma he used to come visit her on his motorcycle. It sounds like she might've been a bit crazy. Anyway, the relationship wasn't good.

I asked Gary if he'd like me to sign my books too, he says, Please do. I write: To Gary, may the poems of the children continue to teach us. Should I put his last name? Oh well. Lee has some books too. I introduce them, saying Lee started California Poets in the Schools in Sonoma County and that he was my mentor teacher. Their conversation opens up as they talk about CPITS. Good

However the autograph line is long, all the way down the hall—and I had taken cuts with Lee who was near the front. Upon leaving I ask, Gary: Are you still at Kitkitdizze? Gary replies, Yes. I say, If there are any worthwhile photos I'll send you some. We make our goodbyes, the people in line are angry with us, but Gary kept us talking.

It was a complete turnaround from the coldness of this afternoon, I remarked to Lee. He says: I believe Gary was genuinely quite touched by tonight's reception, and the fact that you had his poems marked in Atomic Ghost, end that you had read them at the book party… Somehow I had touched the man behind behind the coldness. 

We agreed that the public setting probably had something to do with it, and he was also on his best behavior. I said, I hated having to continually reintroduce myself as the photographer… That I wasn't into hero worship, I wanted to meet him on equal footing. Keeping in mind how many thousands of people he meets in a year—and I only see him once every 3 to 5 years. 

When talking with Lee, Gary began dropping my name as if he knew me, I was no longer the stranger. Earlier, I pointed out my name on the book, This Body is to Ask, for spelling purposes only. He said: That's the only way I know how to spell it. There are few Maureens that come through the autograph lines, I daresay.

9/20-21/1995
transcribed & edited 11/6/2015

Atomic Ghost

Atomic Ghost: Poets Respond to the Nuclear Age

John Bradley (Editor)

John Bradley

"The sun was slow in arriving that morning though it was no longer dark, was light enough, and having been born with good eyes, we..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

August 6, 1945: a day when the world was changed. Thirteen thousand people were killed instantly in Hiroshima, and 90 percent of their city was obliterated. Three days later death again rained down, this time at Nagasaki, with radiation poisoning and slow deaths following. The ghosts of these two Japanese cities move like shadows over Americans, who fear for the safety of their children and the survival of the planet. They are also fearful and angry about official lies about the impact of nuclear testing on health and the environment. The poems in this collection speak honestly and elegantly on these points and more, exposing the nuclear fear that has spread into the core of our being. This is poetry as witness, from the conception of nuclear power to its testing ("talking of the danger/as if it were not ourselves/as if we were testing anything else," writes Adrienne Rich) to its inevitable, unbelievable conclusion. In these poems of witness, protest, prayer, and, perhaps, redemption, we hear compelling voices of the human spirit. Important for poetry collections.

Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia

Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Over 100 poets participate in a strong collection of reflections on the nuclear age, providing personal views of atomic politics and human costs. From Adrienne Rich to William Dickey plus a host of lesser-known but equally-talented poets, Atomic Ghost is rich in imagery and assertiveness. -- Midwest Book Review

CONTENTS   


(—now at Google Books with hot links. Click on the word "Contents" and a list with links will pop up. I've posted a few links here as well. For ages, it was almost impossible to find this book. The reason why I posted the list and reviews here was because it had almost disappeared from sight. Great to see its contents available on the internet as it's an important anthology—one I'm proud to be in. Thank you John Bradley for your vision. MH)

The Testimony Of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Florence Anthony

Bringing Zeus To His Knees by Antler [pseud.]

Atomic Ghost by John Balaban

They're Family Men by Ellen Bass

Wine From Bordeaux by Sujata Bhatt

Deeper Than A Dream by Peter Blue Cloud

Sailors Shielding Their Eyes During Atomic Bomb Test, Bikini by John Bradley

Preparing The Nets At New Stuyahok by John Brandi

Wahsah Zeh (war Dance) - As Long As The Grass by Joseph Bruchac

Why I'm In Favor Of A Nuclear Freeze by Christopher Buckley

Eight-legged Colt, Chernobyl by Jerah Chadwick

Prayer For A Future Beyond Ideology And War by Kelly Cherry

Hiroshima Day At The Riviera Coffeeshop by Andrea Collins

To An Unborn Child by Allan Cooper

Bomb by Gregory Corso

Armageddon by William Dickey

Secret Symbols by Hilda Doolittle

Ground Zero by Sharon Lura Edens Doubiago

Why I Think About Hiroshima And Nagasaki by Edward A. Dougherty

The Cocked Finger by Stephen P. Dunn

The Way Light Bends by William Daniel Ehrhart

Another Kimono by Nancy Eimers

The Planet Krypton by Lynn Emanuel

The Fish Dream by John Engels

Mushroom Clouds by John Robert Engman

The Garden Shukkei-en by Carolyn Forche

Radiation by Margaret Ferguson Gibson

Plutonian Ode by Allen Ginsberg

These Are The Word Wounds by Daniela Gioseffi

Harry S Truman Library, Independence, Missouri by Diane Glancy

Shadow by Patricia Goedicke

A Dream Of The Closeness Of Venus by James Roscoe, Jr. Grabill

The Lightning by James Roscoe, Jr. Grabill

What The End Is For (grand Forks, North Dakota) by Jorie Graham

The Half-life Of Sorrow by Roger Greenwald

The Atom Bum by William Henry, Jr. Greenway

Prayer For Continuation by Susan Griffin

Origami by Jay Griswold

The Bath: August 6, 1945 by Kimiko Hahn

Dream Of The Hair-burning Smell by Jana Harris

N by William Heyen

The Message by Jeffrey Hillard

A Prayer For Men And Women by Linda Hogan

Psalm by Peter Huchel

Late Spring In The Nuclear Age by Andrew Hudgins

Country Of Origin by Maureen Hurley

Simultaneously by David Ignatow

Green Light by Rolf Jacobsen

High Altitude Photo Of Hiroshima (circa 1944) by Kent Johnson

Trilobytes by Kent Johnson

Directions For Carrying Explosive Nuclear Wastes Through ... by June Jordan

Questions by Marc Kaminsky

After The Neutron by Terence Keenan

Waiting For The Invasion by Barbara Kingsolver

The Fundamental Project Of Technology by Galway Kinnell

How To Survive Nuclear War by Maxine W. Kumin

When We Say 'hiroshima' by Kurihara Sadako

A Liturgy For Trinity by Barbara La Morticella

The Garden by Dorianne Laux

Gathered At The River by Denise Levertov

The Horse by Philip Levine

Nevada Red Blues by Adrian C. Louis

The Crab-apple Crisis by George Macbeth

In The Shadow Of The Poisoned Wind by Jack Marshall

Terminal Colloquy by Charles Martin

War Resisters' Song by Thomas Mcgrath

Opening Day by David Mckain

Utilities Advertisement In The Wake Of Three Mile Island by Gary Metras

Sputyen Duyvil by Honor Moore

Uranium by Robert Morgan

The Hibakusha's Letter by David Mura

Tulum Saw The Coming by Alan Napier

The Radio Talk This Morning by Lorine Niedecker

Shoulders by Naomi Shihab Nye

When by Sharon Olds

In This Third Year Of Reagan, My 27th Year by Peter Oresick

An Army Of Lovers by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

Oppenheimer by Antonia Quintana Pigno

For Harry S Truman In Hell by David Ray

Rose Bay Willow Herb by Judy Ray

For Ethel Rosenberg by Adrienne Cecile Rich

Trying To Talk With A Man by Adrienne Cecile Rich

Black Beauty, A Praise by David William Romtvedt

Eating Dinner At My Sister's by David William Romtvedt

Creation by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Memorandum by Nanao Sakaki

Chernobyl by Mary Jo Salter

Welcome To Hiroshima by Mary Jo Salter

Nuclear Winter by Nicholas Samaras

A Vigil At A Missile Silo by Mark Sanders

Tale Before The End Of The World by Maurya Simon

Strategic Air Command by Gary Snyder

Vapor Trails by Gary Snyder

Sunday Afternoon At Fulham Palace by Elizabeth Spires

At The Bomb Testing Site by William Edgar Stafford

When The Vacation Is Over For Good by Mark Strand

Shadow by Stephanie Strickland

Return To Hiroshima by Lucien Stryk

Silence At The End Of The World by Amber Coverdale Sumrall

Destruction by Takahashi Shinkichi

Explosion by Takahashi Shinkichi

Land Of Little Sticks, 1945 by James Tate

At The Makeshift Aid Station by Toge Sankichi

August 6, 1950 by Toge Sankichi

The Shadow by Toge Sankichi

Hurricane Season by Edwina Trentham

Of Simple Intent by Pamela Marie Uschuk

Early Morning Test Light Over Nevada, 1955 by Robert Vasquez

The Hell Mural: Panel 1 by Ronald W. Wallace

Advice To A Prophet by Richard Wilbur

Strategies For Survival (for The Post-nuclear Children) by Beryle Williams

Tar by Charles Kenneth Williams

High Noon At Los Alamos by Eleanor Wilner

May 28, 1945 by S. L. Wisenberg

The Lamb Of Peace, The Ram Of War by William Witherup

Mervyn Clyde Witherup (b. July 14, 1910 - D. May 12, 1988) by William Witherup

On The Eve Of Our Mutually Assured Destruction by Carolyn D. Wright

Because Of Duties, Zimmer Had Forgotten The Forest by Paul Zimmer

But Bird by Paul Zimmer

-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

A review in The Journal of Environmental Education

Another review: University of Oklahoma.

What's interesting it to see where it was reviewed: the Los Alamos Study Group, United States Air Force Academy in Colorado,

Listed under Los Alamos Study Group Since 1989, the Los Alamos Study Group community—our staff and board, volunteers, interns, and supporters—has consistently provided leadership on nuclear disarmament and related issues in New Mexico. Not infrequently, we also have provided leadership nationally as well. Our work includes research and scholarship (central to all we do), education of decisionmakers, providing an information clearinghouse for journalists, organizing, litigating, and advertising. We place particular emphasis on the education and training of young activists and scholars.
Our careful, reasoned approach has gained us many friends, and built bridges even with people in the nuclear labs and plants. Since September 11, 2001, our work has increasingly placed nuclear weapons in the context of aggression abroad and the militarization of our society at home.

The Study Group is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our board of directors includes both New Mexico and national members, and the work of our staff is supplemented by the contributions of interns and volunteers. We are supported largely by individual donations. We welcome your questions, participation, and support.

War, Literature & the Arts: an Interntational Journal—from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Turning Away From the Blast: Formsof Nuclear Protest Poetry

There's a fleeting reference in Literature of Nuclear Nevada | ONE; and in 2001, someone from Knox College, GA, did a performance piece based on lined from the anthology.

It too is listed under Miami Universities Libraries, but not linked to House on Via Gombito; at the Chicago Public Library, and the National Library of Australia.

It's also available at Cornell. What this suggests to me is that it's on class reading lists. I founded it listed in a history bibliography at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, on a UCLA syllabus for Winter, 2013, and elsewhere.

More on John Bradley

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN                                                  

The first hunters who crossed Siberia

survived winter's ancestors

because they wasted nothing—

something of the Inuit remains.

What do we know of Siberia?

We say Siberia, naming the nameless zone

between the taiga  and the tundra.

We say it because it conjures up the idea of wind and snow

unfettered by man to come and go where it pleases.

When we say Siberia the air fills with tundra flowers

and we mean the Siberia of stunted pines

and caribou migrations, but it's also the Siberia

of strip mines and  nuclear physics.

We say it midsummer, under a curtain of fire,

where night never begins;

and in winter, where it never stops.

We say it to sustain us as the invisible wolf

testing the strength of double-paned glass

stares in from the pupiled eye of night.

We say Siberia, stretching out syllables

until it becomes the wind's voice.

Sigh-bier-ria.

We say it as a punishment to our children.

We will ship them off to Siberia.

Banishment is always another country.

We make jokes about it,

and so I touch your golden skin in summer,

how it radiates the sun

while mine is the white of winter.

In the land of exile,

the land of the long ruble,

of opportunists and political prisoners,

where does the Siberian tiger sleep now?

We say Siberia and know nothing about it.

You tell me someone has to be the first

to love across political boundaries

until nations put down their ideals.

There's little comfort in knowing tears or blood

are the same chemistry as their mother, the ocean.

In Novosibirsk, scientists in white rooms

play nuclear physics with God—

like ours at White Sands and Alamagordo.

Something of the landscape must touch them—

surely they dream?

Last night, the sky wore red

and I stood between two rainbows.

Prisms and physics could not explain away refracted light.

There are those desperate enough to drink perfume.

They must've pissed the very heart of summer flowers into snow

only to go blind, was it worth it? Nosdrov'yeh,

a toast clawing olfactory nerves and tissueó

the period between midwinter and spring. Asylum.

But you've been there too, a spy among inmates,

your drawings record far better than any camera

life within the walls of insanityówho's more insane:

the Georgian man over and over again in pencil,

the scientists who turn their backs on the earth,

or those who send the flower of their youth

to front lines to bathe in jellied gasoline

in the name of an idea?

We are all crazy.

It comes with the territory.

Did I tell you Solzhenitsyn lives in a fortress

of his own choosing, deep in the mountains of Vermont?

It's the Gulag  all over again.

He brought his Siberian islands with him.

Dogs patrol the electric fence in regimented intervals.

Stalin's been dead nearly as many years as we've lived.

America is also an experiment,

an armed song singing itself

toward extinction like all the rest.

Yes, we are victims of historyó

fill the silos with grain.

But I touch your face,

my fingers memorize geography.

You ask, how does it feel to be living with bears?

Everyone loses their teeth in Siberia

and you never met a woman before who bites.

I cannot forget your eyesóall that blue,

not of glaciers and ice but of the soft secret heart of stone.

Translucence leashed and folded like linen bedsheets.

Your hand reaches for the moon hidden beneath my shirt,

seeking familiar patterns in a gesture that's timeless.

Learning to live with the land is something the Inuit knew

but even they've begun to turn their backs on it.

We should be around the fire telling stories,

buried in thick furs, safe in each other's arms

but we're not dressed in skins.

I carry a bear's tooth in my pocket

and keep skulls outside my window, just in case.

We live on opposite sides of the earth,

lovers in exile, but love is like that.

We need visas and annulments.

By naming it, it's too late,

we're no longer in the country of origin.

Siberia is singing from the heart of deepest night.

Small hooves pound in our chests.

We live on blubber,

savor fatty tissue and cannot sleep.

V'kusna ? Out of death comes life;

from life, death follows like wolves

trailing the caribou herd.

9/28/89