Nuclear annihilation and contemporary American poetry
Subtitle: ways of nothingness
By: John Gery.
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Gainesville
Language: eng
Number of pages: 235
Subjects: American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Nuclear warfare in literature.; Literature and history -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Apocalyptic literature -- History and criticism.; End of the world in literature.; Nothing (Philosophy) in literature.; Atomic bomb in literature.
Description: The eve of the second millennium falls fifty years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Looking across the spectrum of American poetry since 1945, John Gery explores the role that poets have begun to play in the nuclear age.

While their diverse voices join in protesting against the end of the world, poetry also embodies what Gery calls "the way of nothingness" in contemporary experience, an individual sense of human continuity paradoxically coupled with a global sense of impending annihilation.

The first full-length study of nuclear theory and American poetry, this book examines four distinct poetic approaches to nuclear culture - protest poetry, apocalyptic lyric poetry, psycho-historical poetry, and the poetry of uncertainty. Each is developed through a discussion of representative poems from a range of poets, including an extended study of works by Denise Levertov, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, and John Ashbery.

As a chorus of voices, Gery contends, these poets articulate both resistance to annihilation and an acceptance of the nuclear present.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [208]-217) and indexes.