In the After the Bomb period, an ethos of anxiety and fear emerged from ideological tensions.

The
Western worlds struggles against Communism is often the focus and this resulted in the fear of mutually
assured destruction. This is emphasised in the thoughts of common people around the world shortly
after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Texts such as Denise Levertovs free-verse poem Talk in
the Dark highlight this suffering and the shift from pessimism to hopelessness over time through a
depressing conversation with various anonymous figures. Levertov achieves this through their beliefs for
a future is lost and their self-purpose, questioned.

The title of the poem itself sets the tone of the poem as a gloomy and pessimistic text with the dark in
talk in the dark symbolising a bomb looming over the people. The poem begins with the oxymoron
We live in history highlighting the existential perspective many people had but also the pessimistic
examination the narrator has on life. Interestingly, this is similar to Spy where Liz Gold says I believe in
history alluding to the beliefs of communism and how they have faith in tradition. This pessimistic
outlook is reinforced in the grotesque metaphorical imagery Were flies on the hide of Leviathan
which depicts the death of a great biblical sea monster where they are flies just scavenging suggesting
loss of faith in religion along with purpose.

The litotes mass graves are nothing new are a powerful representation of the loss of hope and
honour. This is very confronting to audiences where we question how can something so powerful and
horrific be insignificant? Is it possible to desensitise to an extent where the deaths of an entire city
means nothing? This is then further developed in the response of all the dead will lie where they fall
shows the transition towards cynicism accentuating by the question if there will be anybody left to bury
the dead. The reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are symbolised in the clich burn to
ash and the confronting vivid imagery of blown in the fiery wind which illustrates the apocalyptic
result of the bomb. The image of a city crumbling and burning to ash is a direct representation of the
cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Levertov also uses the circular structure and anaphoric repetition of the poem says one, says another
to portray this unsettling anxiety and tension. But also, the false hope and optimism seen in the special
places our own roads were to lead to and I still want to see, where my own roads going at the 3 rd
stanza and 2nd last stanza of the poem. Straight after these motifs, this optimism and hope of a future is
immediately crushed with responses of death and the final rhetorical question where can I live if the
world is gone This contempt with what is fated shows how the American conservatism will only result in
people with military power leading and controlling nations.

Overall, Levertovs focusses her lens on the suffering and impact of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima
bombings. She engages us with the anxiety associated with the struggles of the human condition in the
morally regressive Cold War era.