Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

Tsunami vs. the Fukushima 50: Poems by Lee Ann Roripaugh is one of two books of poetry I randomly took off the shelf in November. As it turns out, both books centered the majority of their poems around a common theme, something I tend to not really enjoy. In the case of this book, however, I was pleasantly surprised.

The theme here is the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and subsequent meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant and I found many poignant poems in this volume that reminded me of Lucy Birmingham's history and narrative of the 2011 event, Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, another book that I strongly recommend.

Roripaugh explores the disaster from many perspectives, often comparing the tsunami to an animal or personifying the tsunami. Below are some lines from the first poem in the book.

Ontology of a tsunami

awoken venom

cobra come uncharmed

glittering rush
of fanged lightning
that strikes
and strikes again

tsunami has no name

call her scalded splash
of tea jarred from
a broken cup's cracked glaze...

In a poem called Radioactive Man a middle aged man takes care of his elderly parents by moving them out of the prefecture when the reactor melts down but goes back and stays at his home to rescue and take care of animals left behind and the family home. He is not welcome outside of his home area and regularly shunned, thought reporters come to interview him occasionally. In the final stanzas of the poem he compares himself to Dr. Manhattan:

...in the American Watchmen comics,
Dr. Manhattan was once tricked
into believing he'd given everyone
he ever loved cancer, through
exposure to his radioactive body

just the thought of this undid him,
made him feel so solitary and blue
he left the earth behind for eons,
to brood in exile on the moon.

Certainly he is referring as much to himself as he is to Dr. Manhattan.

Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. A fine little book of poetry with many heartbreaking and well written poems that only touch the surface of this disaster.

Thanks Darrin. The Fukushima disaster seemed to go on and on. I remember waking up every day and wondering what the hell, could it just stop. I wrote a poem about it afterwards too.
This sounds like a good collection though I'm not super into collections around a theme either. I have read this poet elsewhere. I like the language and particularly like the Dr. Manhattan comparison (though I don't know Watchmen).
Thanks for reviewing.

I liked the excerpts, too. I have mixed feelings about themed collections -- I'm more likely to pick one up if I have a preexisting strong interest/obsession with the theme and am less likely to pick it up if I don't. I wonder how many good collections I've missed out on that way.

I have this random poetry book selection thing that I do so it is always interesting what I end up with when I get home from the library. Perhaps I would not have liked this as well if I had not already read Lucy Birmingham's book which really did a good job of describing the awfulness of that tsunami and it's aftermath.

If I had had an awareness of what I was getting, perhaps I would not have selected it. Regardless I have another themed poetry book that I will try to review this evening that I checked out at the same time that I did not like so well.

S. wrote: "Thanks Darrin. The Fukushima disaster seemed to go on and on. I remember waking up every day and wondering what the hell, could it just stop. I wrote a poem about it afterwards too.
This sounds lik..."
It did go on and on. It was one of those disasters that simply became hard to watch or to hear about after a while just because it was so massively awful to process. My wife and I were glued to media when it happened because it was so near Korea where we were living.

The news reports were unbearable to watch. I happen to be one of those who love themed collections.