Proving Grounds by Jean-Paul L. Garnier
Reviewed by Susan Rukeyser
Proving
Grounds, by science fiction writer and publisher, Jean-Paul L. Garnier, is a short and intense collection of anti-nuclear weapons protest
poetry. It is a fierce reckoning with these terrible weapons, as well as our Cold
War childhood fears that changed but never went away. This book demonstrates how
powerfully poetry can become activism: returning our focus to a vital issue, reckoning
with denial and apathy, and, finally, offering hope.
Pocket-sized,
with spare, clean text, this book fits in your hand like a private missive from
deep within the resistance – a critical call to action. The glossy front cover,
designed by the author and Dain Luscombe, is a photographic collage of many
different nuclear explosions. It lends a sense of urgency that sets the tone
for the collection. Each page spread features a poem on the right, and, on the
left, another photograph of another nuclear explosion. The repetition of these
horrifying images, the sheer number of them, becomes part of the experience, always
in the reader’s peripheral vision.
The
exception to this pattern in the two-page poem, “13,890 Nuclear Warheads,” which
ends with a shocking fact:
and you have seen
the image of the cloud
but not as many times
as they have detonated
two thousand and fifty-six
Immediately following this is the poem, “12 Missing Nuclear Bombs” which includes the line, “accidents every seventy-five days."
In
“War Criminals,” Garnier references Operation Paperclip, which secretly brought
Nazi scientists to this country, following World War II, to work for the US
Government – another lesser-known fact that reminds the reader of the inherent
immorality of these weapons:
what did the
Jewish scientists of the
Manhattan Project
feel, as the Paperclip arrived
bombs away to space
Details
like these serve to jar the complacent reader into renewed attention on the
nuclear threat. Garnier acknowledges, in “Remember”:
easy to forget,
many wars since
drugs, terror, disease
enemies we cannot nuke
The
relatable, shared trauma of classroom “duck and cover” drills haunts this
collection, perhaps most poignantly in “Under My Desk”:
under my desk
counting on
little fingers
waiting for the
Russian bomb
no one said why
Outrage
for what that vulnerable child was put through, what we were all put through, burns
through this collection.
Proving
Grounds holds a pointed, seething contempt for former
President Ronald Reagan, who fills the back cover with a photo from his movie
star days, gun drawn and jaw set, as Deputy Marshall from the 1953 Western,
“Law & Order.” Behind him is a fiery explosion.
From
“Reagan Baby”:
Reagan,
you’re my birth rite
leader
of a world
where
everything is owned
and I’ll kneel
under my desk
in your honor.
But
Reagan is just one part of the larger military industrial complex. Garnier laments
the devastation caused by “Lockheed, Boeing/ and all you engineers of death” in
“Do What You’re Good At”:
they could give
us the stars
instead brought micro-suns
burned even the bones of the people
dusted every breath with cancer
Underlying
this book’s fierce tone is heartbreak over squandered opportunities for peace. Hurt
and anger are vented through vulgarity, used effectively at points throughout
the collection, connecting us more directly with the strong emotional response that
is appropriate when remembering how rich war mongers played with our lives and
our planet. From “Shield Yourself”:
I picture an
impotent slob: suit, phallic tie
drunk
on all the riches of life
wavering
over the button
like
an orgasm
one
wants to hold
This
book also takes aim at those who should have known better but were complicit.
In “Feynman’s Arrogance,” Garnier writes:
play the game,
all smiles
you play to mess with authority, with
restriction
as you open up nature to destruction
And
then, with the final poem, “We Can Do Something,” there is a shift, an offering
of hope through resistance.
The
back of the book has a list of anti-nuke websites; QR codes to help readers
find their Congressional representatives; and four pre-written form letters to tear
out and mail to them and the President.
In
the Afterword, Garnier explains what compelled him to write and collect these
poems and how delving into such disturbing subject matter resulted in cognitive
dissonance: “it is simply too great a horror for the mind to accept. … This
inability to grasp the destructive powers, and their scale, causes us to feel
powerless in the face of the bomb. But it is not divine forces we are up
against; it is mere men … We can achieve total nuclear disarmament, it is
possible”.
Proving Grounds reminds us that it is necessary. - Susan Rukeyser
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Proving Grounds is available locally at
Space Cowboy Books
61871 Twenty-nine Palms Hwy.
Joshua Tree, CA
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