Haiku for the Atomic Age: An Interactive Panel at the B Reactor

The nuclear age has shaped popular culture — from Dr. Strangelove to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — and the Atomic Culture Room at the B Reactor, part of Manhattan Project National Historical Park, gathers a few examples from film, literature and music. One of its panels, "A Haiku for You," asks visitors to add their own.

The idea

The panel starts from the observation that the world's fascination with nuclear technology, and its fear of it, turn up in popular culture in many forms: creatures awakened and mutated by the atom, or a hopelessly clumsy nuclear safety operator.

Poetry is one of the oldest ways people have of expressing themselves, and the panel picks a Japanese form, the haiku:

How visitors take part

The panel asks: What does the nuclear age mean to you?

1. Pick words from the baskets of word blocks under the panel.
2. Arrange them into a haiku on the magnet board to its right.
3. Can't find the word you need? Write it in chalk on one of the blank blocks.

The panel's own examples

The poster above the table is titled "A Haiku for You." On its left, a big black silhouette of Godzilla breathes a yellow-and-red flame. Across the top, three haiku are laid over three images of the atomic age.

Over a black-and-white cartoon still of a turtle in a helmet:

A turtle named Bert,
Wants you to duck and cover,
Care for head and tail.

Over the familiar "Rosie the Riveter" image:

A red bandana,
Blue coveralls for Rosie,
Women can do it!!

Over a black-and-white photograph of a lone metal tower in a wide, open landscape:

Metal tower holds its prize,
Countdown to a blinding light,
Opening of the Atomic Age.

Seeing it

The panel is in the B Reactor, which can be visited in person only on guided tours run by the Department of Energy.

Sources

Based on "B Reactor Atomic Culture Room: A Haiku for You," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The photograph of the panel, which reproduces images credited on the panel itself, is left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.