‘Monster in the sky’: Hibakusha poetry and the nuclear sublime Miller, Alyson and Atherton, Cassandra 2017, ‘Monster in the sky’: Hibakusha poetry and the nuclear sublime, TEXT: journal of writing and writing programs, vol. 41, no. Special Issue: Romanticism and Contemporary Australian Writing: Legacies and Resistances, pp. 1-12. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads Title ‘Monster in the sky’: Hibakusha poetry and the nuclear sublime Author(s) Miller, Alyson orcid.org/0000-0003-4884-1821 Atherton, Cassandra Journal name TEXT: journal of writing and writing programs Volume number 41 Issue number Special Issue: Romanticism and Contemporary Australian Writing: Legacies and Resistances Start page 1 End page 12 Total pages 12 Publisher Australasian Association of Writing Programs Place of publication Nathan, Qld. Publication date 2017-10-31 ISSN 1327-9556 Keyword(s) creative writing hibakusha poets atomic bomb poetry nuclear sublime Summary This paper analyses hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) poetry as examples of the nuclear sublime, which Rob Wilson argues is ‘one of the unimaginable, trans-material grounds of a global condition that, paradoxically, can and must be re- imagined, represented, and invoked to prevent this trauma of negativity from happening in post-Cold War history’ (1989: 1). We argue that of all atomic bomb literature, poetry best captures the devastation of atomic warfare and a message of hope for the future because of its emphasis on the economy of expression and, as Robert Jay Lifton argues, its ‘symbolic transformation’ (1991: 21). The ineffability of experience, explored in the Burkean Romantic Sublime, will be discussed as persisting into the politics of the twentieth century and impacting on definitions of the nuclear sublime. While hibakusha continue to be discriminated against – compounded recently by the ongoing catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex – the nuclear sublime compels them to record their experiences in testimony, literature or poetry or to risk a ‘forgetting’ that may lead to the annihilation of the human race. This paper argues that poetry – specifically tanka and haiku – best captures the nuclear sublime. Language eng Field of Research 200524 Comparative Literature Studies 1904 Performing Arts And Creative Writing Socio Economic Objective 950203 Languages and Literature HERDC Research category C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal Copyright notice ©[2017, Australasian Association of Writing Programs] Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30103892 Document type: Journal Article Collection: School of Communication and Creative Arts Related Links Link Description Connect to published version (open access) Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Tue, 31 Oct 2017, 09:30:52 EST Tue, 31 Oct 2017, 09:31:30 EST Tue, 31 Oct 2017, 14:40:36 EST Tue, 31 Oct 2017, 15:06:17 EST Wed, 29 Nov 2017, 05:03:29 EST Fri, 01 Dec 2017, 13:51:08 EST Fri, 01 Dec 2017, 13:53:24 EST Thu, 10 May 2018, 10:27:43 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 0 times in TR Web of Science Cited 0 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 97 Abstract Views, 1 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Tue, 31 Oct 2017, 09:31:30 EST

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