Atomic Paradise by Jules Nyquist

Atomic Paradise takes us from the author’s experience growing up in the Cold War, to reflections on the Manhattan Project, and poet/physicist Dr. Robert Oppenheimer. These poems also explore Hiroshima and the dropping of the bomb, the spread of nuclear weapons throughout the world and nuclear tourism, and the fallout of the nuclear industry in New Mexico. The Japanese internment camps in Santa Fe and the Trinity Site are included along with nuclear waste and the environment in the Southwest. Throughout are the author’s personal observations to make this huge topic of the nuclear war and the resulting nuclear industry a bit more human, and very relevant.

Watch a reading of Atomic Paradise

Praise for Atomic Paradise

Reviewed in the Albuquerque Journal August 1, 2021

Reviewed in  Desert Exposure, Las Cruces, NM. December 1, 2021

“For those of us raised in the shadow of nuclear annihilation – and that is everyone born after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima – this reality is a terrifying and inescapable one. Jules Nyquist investigates this terrain with imagination and compassion. Of the Titan Missiles, she sees how “normalcy” has replaced the Cold War: “Tourists line up for tickets/ at the museum silo on the highway/ that runs down to Mexico.”  Robert Oppenheimer is here, in his atomic Promethean role, as is Trinity Site. So much of this history happened in New Mexico that it benefits from the insights of a New Mexican writer. Important material, beautifully expressed.”

— Miriam Sagan, Santa Fe, NM

“Jules Nyquist’s Atomic Paradise is a passionate and tough minded collection of poems about one of humankind’s greatest follies and mistakes. In her strikingly clear and authentic voice, Nyquist describes in exquisite detail the lurking world of anxiety that is the principal side effect of the Nuclear Age. For everyone alert to this hidden reality of the 21st century, and its potential to create an atomic Paradise Lost, Nyquist’s poems are essential reading.”

 — V.B. Price, The Orphaned Land, New Mexico’s Environment Since the Manhattan Project

“Atomic Paradise renews and explores the A-Bomb industry beginnings and continuums. It includes Robert Oppenheimer and places of origin, development, tragic use, aftermath and nuclear energy problems of storage, integral especially to New Mexico. Nyquist's poetry is story telling which brings this alive and with world-wide connections, expanding our essential awareness -- for New Mexico and all points beyond.”

— Larry Goodell, Placitas, NM

“Atomic Paradise brilliantly captures the dichotomies and contradictions that define the Atomic Age: atomic and paradise; millenarian and apocalyptic; otherworldly and banal. It is a time in which one can, to take the title of one of Nyquist’s most compelling poems, “Build the Apocalypse Inside Your Garage.” Nyquist cleverly interrogates the Christian eschatological implications of nuclear technology in the language of the banal versus the sublime: “It’s only a hobby, to see if it’s possible to be God.” All you need, apparently, is some duct tape and a bit of plastic. This theme of the metaphysical implications of nuclear physics is further developed in lines like this gem about the head of the Manhattan Project: “Oppie was a young scientist following his teacher — a poet called to be a shaman”: Indeed, poets who were called to be shamans who were called destroyer of worlds. Nyquist’s Atomic Paradise challenges us to confront this reality and in doing so brings us to a much more profound understanding of our Atomic Age.”

— Scott C. Zeman, Visiting Professor of Humanities and Communication, New Mexico Tech

“Atomic Paradise is one of the most unique thematic collections of poetry I’ve read in a long time. The title references Nyquist’s home state of New Mexico, birthplace of the atomic bomb.   Though the primary tone of the collection is somber, this is also a sense of innocence as well. As cultural artifact, these are few collections by a single author regarding the fallout/aftermath of the bomb. In the twenty-first century, the testing of the bomb, the scientists involved, the test site, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, all seem like part of a much different time, future or past almost seems indistinguishable. We are on the periphery of forgetting. Nyquist’s Atomic Paradise reminds us to never forget. Those predominantly free verse, she plays with form, particularly with the haiku. Centered on the page, the three-line form bears a resemblance to mushrooms clouds, the bombs bitter icon. My particular favorites include: ‘I Would Die 4 U,’ ‘Yours Truly, Mr. President,’ ‘Atomic Ring,’ and ‘Roasted Pumpkin.’”

— Kevin Zepper, author of “Moonman”

"I've dug in hard on ATOMIC PARADISE.  It's a fantastic send-up on what I'd call part of the essence of New Mexico. For me, in addition, I learned a lot of information that I've never considered before (or just lightly) when it comes to The Land of Enchantment.

To start, the simplicity of "shooting" sets the tone for this and so many other aspects of New Mexico that the entire state feels "good" to have it in its psyche, just as much as "Sacrifice is Sacrament." The entire state is, of course, both, but the endured suffering is also a type of ecstasy that I'm obsessed with, from both a Catholic and non-Catholic point of view. This comes through perfectly in your book.

Indeed, I have spent countless hours in Southwest churches both on and off my knees, both crying and praying and asking for signs, and remembering that I know so little, really nothing. And then, eventually, that "Flash of sunrise/40,000 tons of TNT..." that is figurative, but now, through your book, I see it also as literal, or some vestige of "the blast." Perhaps, too, it remains subtle as "white yucca flows/irreversible time/at Trinity." Yes. Bravo.

And time: A flash, a dream, the wind, the smoke, the destruction where we all "take a walk,/reconnect with trees, flowers,/anything green and living." But the living is also the death, moment after moment, in constant reality and desert mirages and hallucinations. And no way to control any of the beauty and horror, and no way to control that "confederate flag" or a president who helped bury us with his "no mask" mandate.

In the end, ATOMIC PARADISE succeeds because one learns and digests the fact that the bomb exploded and still explodes on both a national, personal, regional, and spiritual level. In New Mexico, it's only brighter and more intense because it is the source.

Without question, ATOMIC PARADISE is a delight of language, history, story, and images, and I'll now carry a new perspective. Each time it's a blast of memory and memories to come, and new ones now to be forged in additional Atomic vision and twisted energy."

— Lawrence Welsh, author of Begging for Vultures: New and Selected Poems, 1994-2009