Field Guide to the End of the World

Typically, field guides are books that help interested readers identify wildlife such as plants or animals, or natural objects, such as minerals, designed to be brought into the "field" or area where the  objects exist.  These books often feature detailed illustrations or photographs. According to Wikipedia, the first popular field guide to plants may have been  How to Know the Wildflowers by "Mrs. William Starr Dana" (Frances Theodora Parsons), published in 1893.  I knew I had a few classic field guides in my shelves, so I looked around my home to gather them.  Quickly, I found a small, eclectic bunch, mostly gifts from my mother (who nurtured the nature lover in me and my young family): A Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds (autographed by Roger Tory Peterson),  A Peterson Field Guide to Pacific State Wildflowers, The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather, and The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Reptiles & Amphibians.  And now there's a new kid on the block.  The newest addition to my collection is a field guide--to the end of the world.

"This is it, the apocalypse . . ."
~ Radioactive, Imagine Dragons

Published in 2016, Field Guide to the End of the World by Jeannine Hall Gailey is a collection of poems that won the 2015 Moon City Press Award.  This book is divided into five sections: Disaster Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Hard Science, A Primer for Your Personal Genome Project, and End Times Eschatology.  In the book, we are introduced to Teen Girl Vampires, Zombie Stripper Clones, and Alien Autopsies.  The tone of this collection is often humorous.  Martha Stewart's Guide to Apocalypse Living, with its "guide to storing munitions in attractive wicker boxes: page 52", has already been mentioned specifically as a very funny poem in other reviews of this book, and I agree.  This collection is filled with original, evocative images that underscore the importance of humor, even during the most troubling, uncertain, apocalyptic times.

There's notable, creative variety in the format of these poems.  Some are presented traditionally, while others, like Post-Apocalypse Postcard from the Viceroy Hotel, Santa Monica, and Post-Apocalypse Postcard from an American Girl ("determined for once to do more than survive"), resemble flash fiction; Shorting Out has spaces to illustrate the "shorts", and there's even a poem written in epistolary form, Letter to John Cusack, Piloting a Plane in an Apocalypse Movie.

Poetry, like music, must be felt to be understood.  You experience poetry by the actual reading of it, or by hearing someone else read it aloud.  Here is a sample from the book, a single, stunning poem, which the poet has given me permission to share. 


Every Human is a Black Box

We all carry our own road map to disaster, the faint voice recordings

that veer from mundane to hysterical in that last moment.
There's no turnkey solution to us; one person's milk
is another's poison; my mother swears green tea gives her hives.

My husband looks up from the field with scratchy throat and red eyes,
while I frolic in amid the goldenrod; at night I toss and wheeze
in the dust of my pillow while he snores dreamlessly.

Our lives have stood, like loaded guns -- for one, heart attack
by sauce alfredo, for another, 101 years of béarnaise and tobacco
troubled by nothing more than mild glaucoma.  Some of us
can disregard the warnings; others must cling tightly to directions.

When you slide into the grave, remember your body is a document,
a reminder, a memorial to distant waters, the siren call of cells
to sleep. Turn off. Shut down.  Mayday, May Day.

Another poem in the book that impressed me greatly is Yearbook: Not Pictured.  This poem is so clever and interesting!   The poet paints pictures of various moments in school "not pictured" in the yearbook, things that were personally meaningful and memorable (such as, "sneaking out to lie in the sun under that pink dogwood tree"),  and states that "the most important lessons are not the ones we were graded for".  How true!  Like all poets, she feels things very deeply, and remembers things well, although of course, memory is selective (relatedly, a young man signed my own high school yearbook with a line that I haven't forgotten, "the end is near").  In this poem, she presents a believable set of details from her time in school that casts us back to our own school days.

These apocalypse poems are poignant, but there are welcome rays of light--"let's just say it was all magical"--because "the poet clings, stubborn, to romance".  As I read this book, I marveled over many things, many times.  Jeannine Hall Gailey's work is full of thought, and fully brilliant. Although the book's subject is serious, this collection is also playful, heartfelt, and hopeful.  It is a celebration of life.  As you can tell, I'm a big fan of Jeannine Hall Gailey's work.  I've also read The Robot Scientist's Daughter, sci-fi poems published in 2015.  I'm eager to read She Returns to the Floating World, another collection of her poems, published by Kitsune Books in 2011.  In college, I read The Floating World in Japanese Fiction (sometimes it comes in handy to have been a Lit. major), and am especially interested in Japanese material now that I have been to Japan(!).  She Returns to the Floating World focuses on feminine transformations in the personae of characters from Japanese folk tales, anime, and manga.  It sounds quite intriguing to me!

Many thanks to Serena from Poetic Book Tours for organizing this tour, and also to Jeannine for graciously mailing me a print copy of her book because I wanted to read it in the traditional way.  For more reviews, please visit the other stops on the tour for Field Guide to the End of the World. I've linked my review to Serena's 2016 Poetry Challenge.

Thanks for reading what I've written!  It's your turn now.  Comments are welcomed.

For National Poetry Month: The Robot Scientist's Daughter

Created by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, April is National Poetry Month.  During this month, schools, libraries, poets, bloggers, and others in the U.S. celebrate poetry in a variety of ways.  I'm doing my very small part to help keep the art of poetry alive, posting just in the nick of time (like last year), near the conclusion of National Poetry Month, with a review of The Robot Scientist's Daughter by poet and writer Jeannine Hall Gailey.

Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington.  She's the author of three other books of poetry, Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, and Unexplained Fevers.  She started writing her fourth book of poems soon after she completed her second book, She Returns to the Floating World, because the disaster at Fukushima occurred during the week that her book went to print, which was an impetus for her work.

"I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals. . ."
~ Radioactive, Imagine Dragons

She also reviewed EPA reports from her rural hometown of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, known as "The Atomic City", and thought about how her own exposure to toxic waste has affected her health over the years.  Oak Ridge was a production site for the Manhattan Project of 1942, the massive operation that developed the atomic bomb, and scientific development is still an integral part of the city's economy and culture.  Additionally, she wanted to write about the influence of her father, a robotics professor and researcher, and about his contributions to science in the nuclear field. 

In the interview I received along with this book, the author says that The Robot Scientist's Daughter is her attempt to create a fairy tale from her autobiography.  Published in 2015 by Mayapple Press, Jeannine also says that it's her most personal book to date, and she calls the composite character "The Robot Scientist's Daughter " a sci-fi version of herself.  (Many of the poems include the words "The Robot Scientist's Daughter" in their titles, and then a word or phrase in parentheses.)  Although the title of this collection is certainly unusual, in all of the poems, the poet describes herself, and her experience, in a clear and compelling manner.  These poems possess style, substance--and science.  She describes the white-tailed deer, catfish, and other creatures, as being full of hot particles (microscopic pieces of radioactive material that can become lodged in living tissue), and her background in science is evident in this work in countless ways.  These poems create vivid images of the effects of radiation, which are terrifying and touching.  Through her work, she wants to raise awareness that nuclear research is never harmless.  Overall, The Robot Scientist's Daughter is a startling, commanding, and beautiful collection of poetry.  Her use of language is exquisite and extraordinary.  Here's a poem I found particularly powerful.


The Robot Scientist's Daughter (Polonium-210)

is a tightly-controlled molecule.
Sometimes she threatens
to explode into antimatter,
to shatter the equilibrium.
Other times she teeters at the edge of decay, a half-life
of skin and soul.  Shake her if you will:
you don't want to stand too close.
She is extremely unstable.  She is toxic;
inhaling or consumption can lead to death.
She is considered fairly volatile.
She can be contained within paper.
She glows bright blue.  She is a showstopper.


This poem is one of my favorites in the book, although I could have easily chosen a different one, as many others are equally affecting and potent.   This collection of poetry is truly a profound "investigation of the beauties and dangers of science and nature", about "a girl in search of the secrets of survival", who loves life and discovers glimmers of hope ("nevertheless, there were violets to pick"). These poems touched me deeply, and made me more aware about the environmental, ethical, and social perils of nuclear power. 

Many thanks to Serena from Poetic Book Tours for sending me a copy of this book and the intriguing author interview.  For other reviews and features, please visit the previous stops on Poetic Book Tours' blog tour for The Robot Scientist's Daughter.  Comments welcomed.