Bloom

by Michael Lista

Bloom is the electrifying debut collection from one of our best emerging poets. If a studio technician could "remix" poems by modern and contemporary poets so they retold the story of the Manhattan Project from the viewpoint of Louis Slotin, simultaneously putting Robert Lowell in whispered conversation with Ted Hughes, as vocalized by a Canadian physicist from Winnipeg, over the current state of literary utopian projects, we'd hear something nearly as captivating as Michael Lista's Bloom. As it is, we also get "Lista" swimming ghostlike through this palimpsest-narrative, inhabiting Slotin and brashly "tickling the dragon's tail" at the nucleus of untested notions of creation, stasis, and destruction. In Bloom , one of the most dangerous historical fulcrums of the last century is somehow made viscerally present again, and, more wondrously, made to radiate outward into very current crises.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an ambitious and fascinating work of poetry. I like it very much, partly because I found it terribly interesting and partly because I think it succeeds in its ambition. The 45 poems here form a narrative of a 1946 incident at Los Alamos in which a physicist working on a core of nuclear material was accidentally exposed, later to die of that radiation poisoning. But it's much more than that. The poems cover the length of one day whose events are seen in parallel with Joyce's Ulysses and therefore also with The Odyssey. The protagonist, the physicist Louis Slotin, corresponds to Leopold Bloom, and the people in his life represent other characters in the Ulysses pantheon. Many well-known elements of the novel are alluded to, and the narrative flow of the poems closely follows that of Ulysses. Slotin's wife, for instance, represents Molly. She's having an affair with one of Slotin's colleagues, a Blazes Boylan figure. Los Alamos itself is a stand-in for Dublin, complete with a map such as that we've become used to in critical analyses of the Joyce novel. "Metempsychosis" is the title of 2 of these poems. "Wandering Rocks" another, and "Louis Slotin and Nausicaa." Against these suggestions of Ulysses are many ideas reflective of nuclear physics, fission, splitting atoms, and the general research business of Los Alamos. The bloom of the title refers to the moment nuclear material goes critical. The word itself appears in almost every poem. And, of course, it evokes Leopold Bloom. But more, each of the poems is written in the style of a particular poet, named at the end of each. Some of the poets I'm not familiar with, but others include Anne Sexton, John Crowe Ransom, and W. H. Auden. Four of the poems carry the voice of Ted Hughes. Only after finishing, when I went back to copy a favorite from the book, "A Pink Wool Knitted Dress" in Hughes's style, did I have an aha moment and laughingly remember that Hughes himself wrote a famous poem with the same title about the day he and Sylvia Plath married, included in his volume Birthday Letters. Lista's ability to get under the skin of such poets as Hughes and Rilke and Robert Lowell and echo their voice and style is impressive. His reimagination of Ulysses is intellectually stimulating and satisfying as well as being breathtaking fun, a ride in which we let him take us to the various stations of Joyce's novel. The book stands on its own, too, as engaging poetry and as an account of 21 May 1946 when the bloom which killed Slotin flared into a lab in Los Alamos. The final poem's title, "Where I Was a Flower of the Mountain," conjures up Molly Bloom again. It ends as the novel ends, with the multiple use of her (and Joyce's) favorite word, "yes." It bears the same transcendence and affirmation as Joyce's work. After such a gratifying reading experience I felt the bloom of all that magnificence as well.

Rereading in 2020. And finished again thinking it's one of those incredible books no one's ever heard of.

[Nathaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful poetry, but I didn’t…follow the plot? It did not read like the synopsis said it would read.

[Lily M ❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*

it was okay, i really liked some lines

***

The moon was a slice of sautéed onion the night I decided I needed to die.

***

... our beloved far away to love.

***

First light tomorrow, before I leave
We'll meet. I promise. I'm coming
Over the mountain at dawn. Believe
You me. I'll crest the summit running.

[Laila · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best poetry books I've ever read. It's a series of poems inspired by the life of Louis Slotin, who was a physicist working in the Manhattan Project. I'm not a physics person, or at least I didn't think I was, until this book. I spent hours reading on Louis Slotin and the Project, as a result of it - I'd highly recommend it to everyone, regardless of whether or not they have a science background.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

At chapel Harry is compared to Icarus,
Gluing government wings to too human
A back. The sea out ahead made of liquorice,
His foot on the ledge, a tug at the lumen
Of will and he's off. There below are the trees,
Standard as soldiers, beside him an ogle of birds.
Then he turns on his wing and revolves the world slowly
And he waves (his family wave back, tiny as words).
Go get 'em Harry! Over the roil and the blast
Of the ocean he goes, bulging like a sail.
I feel the heat at his face as he tunnels that vast
Eye - he points his finger - into what further vale,
Gone toward the light, buoyed on the air
By every evil thing to which I'm heir.

- Louis Slotin in Hands, after Anne Sexton, pg. 16

* * *

There are too many people on this planet
too hungry, locust-dumb, athwart each other, occluded the sun.
They leave behind a scorched field they've loved.

- Laestrygonians, after D.H. Lawrence, pg. 28

* * *

He is walking down your street towards you.
His heels clack uniquely down the night street. Your lights
are on. He's been watching since you slinked
before the sink, ran the faucet, started
washing dishes, how your shoulders shake
like something itches. You keep your back turned.
How you know he likes it when you act
like you don't know he's looking. The door's
unlocked. You've put on something nice.
And the breeze he's combing through.
And the breeze - but now you smell it isn't he
who's being blown to you. Amiss comes dressed
as what you hadn't heart to fear, and now
disaster is an accident arrived,
prescribed, a doorbell rung just as the record's needle
lifts, and the crackle fades in key. As if your gifts
are what (you realize)
you'd wrapped. Your husband is a bit of news
your lover will deliver. Only facts remain,
a laundry of gestures he will hang with care
that you'll be left to fold. He shuts the door, removes his hat,
and steps to you. You keep your back turned
how you know he likes it. Because in turning,
this sink, however he looks,
the old star-eaten blanket of the night
will hook its hinge, as the freight of what must be
assumes its weight. To see Graves speak,
the latch of his tongue taking its lock. To turn
and face your fate, a name in its mouth.

- Metempsychosis, after Karen Solie, pg. 67-68

* * *

Though years are many, the day is one;
And all the novel shades of history
Are gnomons dialled by a daily sun.
Now let me set into the mystery.

- The Coming of Wisdom with Time, after W.B. Yeats, pg. 70

[Talley Fenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5*

the author is extremely talented and the poetry is absolutely stunning. piecing together the story of Louis Slotin and the plutonium bloom through the words of a poet was incredibly unique to read.

[Ava]

A fascinating collection of poems! If only I understood them all...

[Michelle Cheuk]

ate oppenheimer upppppppp,,, i actually hate that i can't read my own books, have to read this book for my english course

[zoe clouthier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely read

[Moktoklee]

My thoughts on Michael Lista's Bloom:

This is an excellent set of poems. I know this is an excellent set of poems, but I also feel totally and completely comfortable, and perhaps a tad smugly self-satisfied knowing I am never going to come back to this collection again.
As I said, it is good and I have a firm understanding of why it is good but it contains the same condescendingly smug literary snobbishness that the English-speaking world of poetry seems content with. It was this attitude and poetical approach that created a barrier and prevented me from becoming interested in poetry for the longest time. It's only been in the last year or so that I've finally found my niche in poetry.
This is why I say I'm a tad smugly self-satisfied reading this collection knowing enough now about poetry to know that Bloom is good, but that I know enough about what I like to justifiably say why I'm not going to spend any more time on it.

[Sofía · Rating 5 out of 5]

first read through was interesting but i don't know physics well enough, physics jargon one might say

second read through was much better especially talking to the author himself??? he did sign my book

third read through, just keeps getting better? truly a masterpiece wowza

basically read it a fourth time after how many times i had to skim it for this essay

[Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book of poetry that focusses around the atomic bomb research done by American Scientists, especially Graves and Slotin. Many of them were poisoned and died of exposure. He plays with various meanings of the word bloom.

[Andrea Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting the narrative that holds all of this brilliant work together. This is the gift of a truly inspired and talented poet.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful & smart

[Nigel Beale · Rating 5 out of 5]

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