Welcome To Hiroshima Poem Analysis

Everybody experiences difficult times throughout their entire lives. Whether they appear as physically demanding tasks, challenging mental decisions, or saddening emotional tragedies, these events challenge our persistency and adaptability. Different people handle these situations differently; some might become stuck from moving on, while others will quickly take actions to move on. In "Welcome to Hiroshima" by Mary Jo Salter, the speaker realizes how a community of misfortunate people moved on from a tragedy, but the speaker pessimistically notices innocent surroundings, and cannot stop alluding to the city’s horrific past. In the poem “Welcome to Hiroshima," the poet uses various literary devices to demonstrate how during the process of recovering …show more content…
Going towards the memorial museum, the speaker passes by Peace Park. She describes the park as a, “floral hypocenter (where/how bravely, or with what mistaken cheer,/humanity erased its own erasure.)” By using the word “hypocenter,” in this context it doubles the intention of conveying a message of explosion, where two hypocenters coincide into one. It is ironic that Peace Park, the hypocenter of the bombing, is now the middle of an explosion of flowers. The speaker discusses the making of the park with cynicism, indicating that the architects may have been cheerful, or thought themselves brave, as they designed a flourishing and commemorative public area. However, just as how the bombing essentially was an “erasure” of a population of humanity, the park does not do justice to the victims, and essentially covers up or erases the past situation behind a flowery facade. Later, reaching the memorial museum, the speaker immediately encounters a display. She indicates that all visitors, “Through more glass are served, as on a dish of blistered grass, three mannequins, strings of flesh hang from their fingertips.” The poet acknowledges the complexity of the controversial museum display, it tries to teach the public while being a sensitive display that should not convey alternative meanings, but still thinks that the display is inappropriate. In addition, the poet uses words such as “served” to make it obvious that the museum’s mannequins are too direct in their appearance, possibly conveying alternative messages of foolishness or intimidation. The metaphor “as on a dish of blistered grass” further references both the damage of the bomb (blistered grass from the explosion) as well as the display being too frank. The speaker later moves on from the