Mills read a selection of poetry from her book, Hawk Parable, covering themes about nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific and exploring her family's mystery of her grandfather's involvement in the bombing of Nagasaki.
Her poems were varied in tone and perspective, jumping from the point of view of a soldier to searching for bomb testing sites that were wiped out on Google Maps, but each work held a deep respect for their subjects and themes.
During the Q & A at the end of the session, Mills said that she started researching these topics for her poems before 2009, some of her poems taking as long as 3 years to write, and some only taking a few hours. She especially became invested in digging through old videos of released footage of bomb testings. "[At times] I found myself pausing these videos and wishing I could stop the bombing," she told the audience.
The evening was a powerful, instructive, and enjoyable one for all of her audience members, full of poignant and moving poems. Tyler Mills' presence at Bloomsburg and her poetic insights were greatly appreciated by all attending. In hearing her poetry, we all agreed with her statement, "To me, poetry has a power to create a voice that's eternal."
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