Reverberations from Fukushima: 50 Japanese Poets Speak Out

By Parkdale Press LLC

This anthology conveys the enormity of Fukushima, the first nuclear disaster of the 21st Century, on both the environmental and human scale. Contributions by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Helen Caldicott, Fairewinds Energy Education founder Maggie Gundersen, and professor emerita Dr. Norma Field discuss the nuclear disaster in the con

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parkdale Press LLC
• Release date: Mar 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736283219

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Praise for the Second Edition

This collection of poems is essential reading, as are the essays. The decisions we make in our own communities with regards to this technology must be guided, not just by scientific abstraction—but by our ability to fully imagine what is at risk. The poets in this book engage our hearts and imagination in a way that is critical for our understanding. I wept reading this book and you will too.

—Melissa Tuckey, editor of Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology

Poetry speaks the language of the heart, and this is the language of peace and justice. Poetry does not prevaricate or justify. It looks at what is or may be, and finds insights, new and old. The fifty Japanese poets in this book on Fukushima are focused on a technological tragedy. One cannot read these poems without feeling the very real threat posed by the so-called peaceful uses of nuclear power. First, Japan was the victim of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And then came Fukushima. These poems are love letters to humanity, warnings of the possibility of extinction.

—David Krieger, President Emeritus of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

The conversation about nuclear power usually centers on scientific and technical details, limiting the debate to experts." Yet every aspect of nuclear power generation, including uranium mining, nuclear accidents and nuclear waste disposal, affects all of us as it inevitably results in environmental injustice and human suffering. Ten years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the second edition of Reverberations from Fukushima makes a significant contribution to the anti-nuclear conversation, helping us grasp the true cost of nuclear power and what it means for impacted people and their health. The poems and essays featured in the book help us fathom the unfathomable and understand the injustice inherent in nuclear power from a deeply human perspective."

—Kelly Campbell, Executive Director, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

The poems and essays in this important anthology greatly impacted me, especially the writings of Dr. Helen Caldicott on the health damage to children from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. I was born and raised in the radiation plumes downwind from the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington State. I now suffer from severe thyroid dysfunction and other disabling radiogenic diseases. In spite of the broad range of radiogenic cancers and other diseases that can result from radiation exposure, only thyroid damage has been tracked in the downwinders of Fukushima and Hanford. The human health toll of environmental radiation exposure extends far beyond thyroid damage. Obfuscation of this truth constitutes an unforgiveable wrong against those of us irretrievably harmed by these exposures.

—Trisha T. Pritikin, The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice

Praise for the First Edition

Poetry may not be capable, in the literal sense, of cleansing Japan and the world of radioactive particles released into the atmosphere, groundwater, soil and seawater from the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. But poetry can cleanse the insensitive atmosphere of perception, the upturned ocean of sorrow, the groundwater of despair. And the poems in this anthology most certainly provide a means to experience something that, hopefully, we will never have to experience. Each poem here provides language as a living response, examples of a consciousness turned toward extremity, and ultimately a primal commitment to the art of witness.

—David Biespiel, author of The Book of Men and Women

Here, finally reaching our shore, the first wave of poems out of Fukushima: disaster in the first-person, no longer paraphrased, managed, or supposed. These are the voices that bring the experience closer than journalism ever could, that ask us to plant ourselves in the path of contamination, fear, betrayal. Our losses become all too real….

—Kathleen Flenniken, author of Plume

Sometimes a poet can grasp the human significance of a technological failure better than a scientist. We are fortunate to have these poetic voices from Japan collected here. May we hear them and, more importantly, may we heed them.

—John Pearson, MD, Past President, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility

Reverberations from Fukushima

The cart that overturns on the road ahead is a warning to the one behind. – Buddhist proverb

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements xiii

Foreword by Dr. Helen Caldicott xv

Preface to the Second Edition xvii

Introduction

Fukushima: Ten Years After xix

This will still be true tomorrow:

Fukushima Ain’t Got the Time for Olympic Games xxix

SMALL MODULAR REACTORS—SAME NUCLEAR DISASTERS xxxv

A LETTER FROM THE SHROUD 1

THE WALLS 3

IF A MAN SNATCHES FIRE 4

ON THE NIGHT MARKING SUMMER’S END 6

SITE WHERE DANGEROUS OBJECTS ARE BURIED 8

FRESH AIR 9

TO GIVE BIRTH 10

A LAND OF SORROW: A CITY SPIRITED AWAY BY GOD 12

HEAVY DAYS AND YEARS 15

A PHANTOM COUNTRY OF CIVILIZATION 16

WHAT SHOULD WE DO? 17

EINSTEIN’S VOICE 19

LIKE TOMATOES 20

TRANSITION OF A MYTH 21

HELEN KELLER’S FINGERTIPS 22

GIVE US BACK EVERYTHING 23

FUKUSHIMA 25

THE DAY MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER ENDED 27

CHURCH ROCK & FUKUSHIMA 29

THE POLLUTION OF OUR ANCESTRAL LAND 31

OUR HOUSEDOG WAS WATCHING US 32

A DIFFERENT VERSION OF A RECORD OF THE LIVING 33

A VISIT TO A NUCLEAR POWER STATION 35

SWINDLING OF ONE MILLION YEARS 36

THE TEN MILLION DOLLAR NIGHT VIEW 38

A SONG FOR TOMORROW 39

MY HOME, NAMIEMACHI 40

TO MY HOME 41

FETAL ACTIVITY OF BLUE 42

DECONTAMINATION 43

LIFE IS A TRUE TREASURE 44

FAIRYLAND 45

THE PLACE WHERE THE SOUL FLIES 46

WASH 47

THE BEAUTIFUL FUTURE 48

THE HEARTBEAT 49

TO THE NEW GENERATIONS 50

OH, HOW I WISH TO HAVE A FULL-BLOOMING CHERRY TREE 51

TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH 52

STEALTH 53

AT TOMARI NUCLEAR PLANT 54

YOU’RE GONNA GET IT! 56

THE DARKNESS OF BUILDING MORE NUCLEAR PLANTS 57

THE REVIVED PIANO 58

THE SOUND OF WAVES X 59

RESTART 61

LET’S LISTEN TO THE VOICELESS VOICE 62

THE FIRE IN HELL 63

THE HOLLOW EARTH 64

BUDDING 65

Remarks about Editing the Translations in Reverberations from Fukushima 67

Page References for the Poems 69

About the Editor 73

Bilingual First Edition 74

Also by Leah Stenson 75

Copyright 76

Acknowledgements

It has taken a global village spread over three continents to publish the first and second editions of Reverberations from Fukushima. To everyone who played a part in helping me raise awareness of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and its dire consequences, I am sincerely grateful.

First and foremost among contributors to the second edition is Maggie Gundersen, founder of Fairewinds Energy Education. She has been an inspiration in her steadfast effort to educate the public about the dangers of nuclear power. In addition to promoting the first edition of Reverberations from Fukushima by reviewing the book in the Fairewinds Energy Education newsletter, she contributed the introduction to the second edition and was tremendously supportive as I labored to prepare the book. Moreover, it was Maggie who introduced me to Norma Field, professor emerita, University