Salter Welcome to Hiroshima

Ignominious Actions Upon the beginning of Mary Jo Salter’s “Welcome to Hiroshima” materializes as a visual holiday to a different country. However, the detail of imagery reveals a different sort of poem. The theme of the poem is a gloomy look at how humans destroy each other. The careful imagery of the lingering effects of war, the devastation of human life and the shadowy unknowns of the future through images of shock, guilt and …

…pictures. Looking into the glass display case once more the persona reveals a woman’s arm. The imagery of her arm being blown off at “eight fifteen” is unmistakable by a piece of glass impounded into her skin. Salter’s persona admits that hope and pain are eternal and the realities of the events being repeated again are foreseeable. The persona reflects numbness as she expects the effects of war to show herself once more.