SOURCE: A review of Atomic Ghost: Poets Respond to the Nuclear Age, in The Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 15, No. 5, September-October, 1995, p. 28.

[In the following positive review of Atomic Ghosts, an anthology of poems that examine the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, Lenz applauds the collection's structure and guiding principles.]

This year—the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima—arrives for a public so familiar with "the bomb," nuclear power, and their dangers as to create the illusion that microscopic atom-play is commonplace, a simple fact of life. The smallness—and paradoxically monstrous scale—of atomic and nuclear power is precisely what makes its impact so hard to grasp. To an average person living in the nineties, the effect of this technology on our day-to-day lives seems minor.

Atomic Ghost serves to remind us of the danger of this sort of denial, especially in a culture that...