British poetry about the Chernobyl disaster, and chains of adaptation

In a previous blog post, I suggested two books to help readers learn about the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster of 1986. In this post, I build on that by recommending some poems about Chernobyl. These don't trivialise or sensationalise nuclear disaster - they lament the dead and displaced, supported by specific details which humanise victims…

If you liked This Is How You Lose the Time War, try this poetry collection about space, fate, love, and pain

Earlier this year I read Allodynia (Palimpsest Press, 2022) by Canadian poet Nisa Malli. Her first book-length poetry collection, it has two main aspects, structured in three sections. The "ship's log", a narrative about star-crossed interspecies lovers on a distant planet is sandwiched between two "pain logs" which describe chronic pain, hospital stays, and the…

Books about the Chernobyl disaster: starting points

Chernobyl. Once it was a place where people lived. Then it was an event that people talked about. Now, perhaps, a myth that people reference? The reality is more complicated, but 'Chernobyl' has become a shorthand of sorts, standing in for nuclear-themed devastation. Older readers may take it for granted that the events which took…

Ladybird books and nuclear power since 1972

Half a century after its publication, The Story of Nuclear Power: A Ladybird Book (1972) has aged badly, but it can still tell a story about changing views on nuclear power in Britain. A bit about Ladybird books I came across The Story of Nuclear Power while browsing for second-hand books online, and was immediately…

Nuclear vulture

They said the cockroach would be the one to outlast us all, that after all the destruction - the explosions and the shockwaves and the fires and the terror and the chaos afterwards - still the cockroach would come crawling out. Mutated, maybe, by the radiation, a little less defined than before but nonetheless, a…

Writing Notes on Things no.9: Typewriter

Back at the start of WNoT I wrote that I'd be basing posts on real objects that belong to me. Recent instalments of the series have somewhat drifted from that, but today I'm taking inspiration from a real object - my very real physical typewriter - and leaving thing theory out of it as I…

Original poem: “On Writing My MA Thesis”

Rutherford and Soddy may be alchemists but my process is more like panning for gold. By the waterside, thoughts flow downstream rapidly. My feet get cold as I sift through grit looking for that which sparkles in the sun. Even when I think I've found what I'm seeking it might be fool's gold. I wonder…

Back to class

And so it's September again, a month which for me always brings back-to-school vibes. As autumn begins this is a great time to turn over a crunchy orange leaf and get a fresh start (no slugs, please). This year that back-to-school feeling is warranted, since I'm about to head to university and become a student…

“I think you’re one of those people who write instead of live, aren’t you?”: Quotations and motivations

My mum has this phrase, "if it's not on the calendar, it isn't happening", meaning that plans and appointments not written down are liable to be forgotten or have something else planned in their place. It's a practical thing, but perhaps also indicative of a home culture that writes stuff down - a home that…

Shakespeare in performance: National Theatre’s “Romeo & Juliet” (2020)

In a sentence: Light on Shakespeare's script but big on visual appeal, this dynamic production brings the romantic tragedy to the small screen in a contemporary-feeling adaptation. The story of "Juliet and her Romeo" is the best-known of all Shakespeare's plays. It's an ingrained cultural touchstone, quoted and misquoted everywhere, somehow a pinnacle of romance…