Atomic Pantoum (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Peter Meinke
- First Published: 1987
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric sequence
- Subjects: War, Atomic bomb, Nuclear warfare or weapons, Arms or weapons, Physics or physicists, Nuclear energy or power plants, Energy, Atoms, Nuclear physics
The Poem
“Atomic Pantoum” angrily reflects on the human fascination with destruction, specifically the terrible power of nuclear weapons. The first two stanzas describe the chain reaction that generates the energy for such a weapon: The force of individual neutrons splitting splits the centers of others, releasing energy to split still more in a rapidly enlarging progression impossible to stop. By the third and fourth stanzas, the factual, even colloquial, language (“start this all over”) of the opening turns strongly emotional. Let the process continue, Peter Meinke...
[The entire page is 1554 words long]
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