Desert Fathers, Uranium Daughters
“Desert Fathers, Uranium Daughters” by Debora Greger, published by Penguin in 1996, is a poetry collection that delves into the complexities of growing up near the Hanford atomic plant in Washington. With 82 pages, this edition presents Greger’s reflections on her Catholic girlhood and the subtle yet profound impact of living in a landscape marked by the legacy of nuclear history. The poems are infused with her characteristic wit and intelligence, exploring themes of memory and the environment.
Readers will find a rich tapestry of imagery and insight as Greger navigates her experiences against the backdrop of a community shaped by the atomic age. The collection captures moments where the ordinary intersects with the extraordinary, inviting contemplation on the implications of a radioactive past. Through her unique voice, Greger offers a thoughtful examination of identity and place, making this anthology a significant contribution to American poetry.
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Award-winning poet Debora Greger grew up in Washington near the site of the Hanford atomic plant, which, unbeknownst to its workers, manufactured plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. “The high school team was named the Bombers,” she writes. “The school ring had a mushroom cloud on it.” In Desert Fathers, Uranium Daughters she uses what The Nation has characterized as her “deadpan wit, intelligence and marvelous insight” to explore the legacy of a Catholic girlhood spent in a landscape where “even the dust, though we didn’t know it then, was radioactive.”
“Call us out of the animal,” Greger writes, invoking the ghost of a poet conjured in “Nights of 1995,” in what could be construed as the motto of a collection filled with what Poetry called “priceless instants where the mundane flares up into the miraculous.”
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