
Almost eight decades after the Atomic Holocaust in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki, we still are looking for peace. These blasts destroyed humanity and the tenor of human lives. While nuclear treatise are still holding up, many parts of the world are warring over different issues… for borders we ourselves have drawn, for ideologies and pedagogies we ourselves have created. It has become difficult now to keep track of the terrors and horrors unleashed on unsuspecting citizens and innocents. There was a point of time, where kings settles their conflicts by fighting outside the cities with rules of war. But despite all the treatise and the deals, children are still dying in bomb blasts. Innocents are still being killed by missiles. One would have thought, humanity would have learnt from the past… But have we?
Showcasing the need for peace, we bring to you, recent poetry about the ensuing conflicts and some poems on the blast that killed innocents and maimed generations to come. We have an essay on an age-long conflict which does not seem to get resolved and the interview of a second generation Hibakusha who still suffers from the impact of the blast that had destroyed her mother’s world and left its imprints on the later generations.
Poetry
At the Turn of the Century by Stuart MacFarlane. Click here to read.
A Child in Gaza by David Mellor. Click here to read.
I am Ukraine by Lesya Bakun. Click here to read.
Flowers Bloom Everywhere by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.
Commemorating Hiroshima: Poetry by Suzanne Kamata. Click here to read.
Prose
‘When will we ever learn? Oh, will we ever learn?’
Ratnottama Sengupta, comments on the current situation in Ukraine while dwelling on her memorable meeting with folk legend Pete Seeger, a pacifist, who wrote ‘Where have all the Flowers gone’, based on a folk song from Ukraine. Click here to read.
How the Impact of the Hiroshima Blast Lingers
An interview with second generation hibakusha, Kathleen Burkinshaw. Click here to read.