[Aaron Poochigian]

Sounds good to me.

[Allen Tice]

Title change and content additions.

[John Riley]

Allen, I need to say I didn't cast aspersions on your father. My father and uncles fought in the war and I'm sure they had a death count. I meant to point out that when an atomic bomb or atomic bomb-making is at the center of a poem it takes up most of the air and I don't feel that the poem acknowledges that. There is sincere love and pride for the father but behind that is really big bomb. It's sort of like one of those photos of a hunter smiling into the camera, unaware that a mountain lion is staring at him from behind. I hope that clears up what I wanted to say.

Best

[Allen Tice]

I guess it’s true that some things are too awful to write about.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Originally Posted by Allen Tice

I guess it’s true that some things are too awful to write about.

Really? It is probably exactly what you should be writing about. It just needs more work to place deal with the gravity of the bomb and the needs of your relationship to the man. Way worth it though.

[James Brancheau]

say what, scoff, etc, from the first S, for example, is wrong in so many ways. It's mixed up, rough drafty, imo. I would say it's very emotional at its core. It should remain avoidant, taking this head on. Start with the thread title, as the title. Clever doesn't count much here. It's a slow dance.

[Jim Moonan]

.
Allen: "I cannot prove the following. However, I believe that the burdens he carried, along with similar work by others in the US military and elsewhere, contributed to the cessation of above-ground testing, and, further, the development of atomic test ban treaties. For that I am grateful. And hence, his moral struggles that aged him before my eyes and before his time, were surely worth it in some way. Just because he was necessarily present to make observations up close when tests were performed should not imply his approval. All this nearly drove my mother nuts, and I understand why. Apocalyptic isn’t just a word."


This is the poem, but I don't think it comes across as written. The moral aspects are muted. Perhaps it's that you've made it an odd love poem (by virtue of the final stanza) that the moral underpinning you say you want the poem to have is side-tracked and/or muffled. As it is, it seems an odd love poem.

Perhaps the whole poem is tongue-tied. Maybe that's it. Maybe that’s what you want to say.

I agree with James and Aaron about the first lines — You tip the boat over before you even get out of the harbor. And I agree with Andrew about what you really should be focusing on — even if it is a love poem.

I do like bald-faced love poems (which is what In think this is, as is) because I think that love is blind but can see what isn’t visible. The narrative of this is being told with an odd, halting adoration, with hints of some unidentified guilt, that finally bursts like a wave-wash of desperate love. I like the concept of that, but don’t think you’ve executed it effectively.

The poem’s language is more prosaic than poetic. There's not much music/sonics in the poem... Not much alliteration... Not much imagery other than the glare of an atomic mushroom cloud… The end-rhyming almost feels out of place and might be better situated as internal rhymes than end-rhymes…( I’m just mulling it over... I don’t know if my musings are of any worth to you....)

Perhaps you should explore structuring this as a prose poem — Or maybe you might be willing to comb it out to say more by saying less.

.

[Sergio F Lima]

Hi Alan:

I have read your poem several times. It is a beautiful tribute to your father.
You are lucky to have had a father who was not afraid to show his love for his family. Some of us were not that fortunate.
Thank you for posting:
S

[Allen Tice]

Sergio, Jim, James, Andrew, John, and others who care,
Thank you. I’m considering making a few smallish additions to the actual text in a new revision to my effort that don’t detract from what I’ve put up so far. These might date his participation in the weapons study program to clarify that he had nothing to do with what was dropped on Japan (or Dresden for that matter). His most top secret work came later, and was only a part of his prosaic and continual study of earthquakes and terrestrial physics generally. I agree that the significance of his (and that of others) work in the largely precomputer years after WWII is an important topic. And I think this is a lousy “poem” as it is, and probably will continue to be. We are all the children of those someones who came before; we didn’t ask to arrive in their households. Or face the consequences of their activities. Or those of other people.

Thanks.

[Allen Tice]

Second version, with additions.