Bomb Cloud

A shimmering memoir defined equally by its lyrical prose and profound historical implications, The Bomb Cloud untangles the intersecting strands of information running through a family mystery shaped by national secrets. From craggy cliffs in New Mexico to the haunting White Sands Missile Range, poet Tyler Mills meditates on the journeys that curiosity and research demand. Mills wonders about the nature of memory and writing itself, which surface as subjects -- and asks what it means to discover, create, and re-create narratives in a search for illusive clarity. How can one navigate through gaps in the fence around forbidden knowledge and confront what seems to be the truth? Extending from the poems in Mills' Hawk Parable, this memoir wrestles with her grandfather's likely involvement in a top-secret bomb wing that trained in the New Mexico desert, taking the reader to the very edge of the unknowable. The Bomb Cloud offers a story through essays about ecological crisis, family intrigue, personal and collective trauma, borders and the American Southwest, and mothering and legacy. It also splits open what it means to grapple with a history, a past, a place, and a self through language. The Bomb Cloud includes 10 pieces of original, multi-media art by the author exploring the questions posed by the book.