Poetry and Nuclear Power

A couple days ago one of my professor's recommended I read a piece of poetry by C.K. Williams. The poem is called "Tar", it focuses on a group of workmen tearing the roof off a building near Three Mile Island on the day of the accident in 1979. Since the present administration has decided to invest in nuclear energy and since I don't often see poetry on BlueNC, I thought I would share this piece. Here are the first few lines.

The first morning of Three Mile Island: those first disquieting,uncertain,
mystifying hours.
All morning a crew of workmen have been tearing the old decrepit roof off our
building,
and all morning, trying to distract myself, I’ve been wandering out to watch them
as they hack away the leaden layers of asbestos paper and disassemble the
disintegrating drains.
After half a night of listening to the news, wondering how to know a hundred
miles downwind
if and when to make a run for it and where

Personally, I think Williams is drawing a connection between the toxic job of tearing down this basic roof and the potential environmental impact that is often associated with nuclear power. In a separate interview when Williams was asked if his poetry was political he said that "it's not so much as political, as being as conscious, as it can be." It's obvious that this quote is very fitting for our present situation. Simply put, we need to be "conscious" of the impacts that will come with an expansion of nuclear power in America. You can check out the rest of the poem here.