Gregory Corso's "Bomb": A response to nuclear anxiety

Gregory Corso is a core member of the Beat Generation which evolved in America during the 1950s to question the causes of a perceived decline in postwar spiritual values. The Beats criticized an America that permitted the atomic explosions over Japan, the McCarthy discourse, the Cold War, and the policies of mistrust and paranoia these events engendered. Corso addressed the issue of nuclear anxiety and its controlling effect on life in a 1958 poem titled "Bomb." This paper analyzes "Bomb," viewing it as a work informed by Corso's life and by his times. In "Bomb," one of the earliest examples of nuclear literature, Corso seeks to neutralize the power of nuclear anxiety by imagining a natural and spiritual survival of the atomic apocalypse. His message reflects the moral and prophetic role he prescribes for poetry in championing the forces of life over death.