Poetry and Sharks
My two youngest sons are currently obsessed with 'sea creatures'; whales, sharks, dolphins, squid, crabs, etc. have grabbed their attention as planets and solar systems did last fall. Daily they create dozens of pictures of these creatures and beg to watch, once more, episode 3 of The Blue Planet.
It's been great fun to learn with them about the ocean and its animals and amazing to see how much information about these topics their young brains easily absorb.
It's been great fun to learn with them about the ocean and its animals and amazing to see how much information about these topics their young brains easily absorb.
Like most kids, their favorite animal seems to be the shark. Well, maybe it's the blue whale, but I don't know a poem about a blue whale, whereas I know the following poem about a shark.
The Maldive Shark
About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.
Few people, I suppose, think of poetry when they think of Herman Melville, but he wrote a lot of it, and much of it is, like the poem above, very good. (I particularly like the phrase "Gorgonian head"). That his poetry is not well-known can be chalked up, at least partly, to its not being available in a decent edition. Well, that recently changed when the Library of America finally published his complete poems in this lovely edition (click on pic for link):
With most of the world quarantined at home, there's never been a better time to read Melville's poetry. And this isolation will probably be long enough for a few hardy folks to tackle his Clarel, one of the longest poems in American literature.* But if 18,000 lines of epic poetry about a man's pilgrimage to the Holy Land isn't your thing, you can always reread The Maldive Shark or Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, his collection of poems on America's Civil War.
* What is the longest poem in American literature, you ask? It is, as of this post, the science fiction epic: Space an Odyssey in Rhyme.
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| Phlegmatical pale ravener with a Gorgonian head. |
Few people, I suppose, think of poetry when they think of Herman Melville, but he wrote a lot of it, and much of it is, like the poem above, very good. (I particularly like the phrase "Gorgonian head"). That his poetry is not well-known can be chalked up, at least partly, to its not being available in a decent edition. Well, that recently changed when the Library of America finally published his complete poems in this lovely edition (click on pic for link):
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| You know you want to buy it. |
With most of the world quarantined at home, there's never been a better time to read Melville's poetry. And this isolation will probably be long enough for a few hardy folks to tackle his Clarel, one of the longest poems in American literature.* But if 18,000 lines of epic poetry about a man's pilgrimage to the Holy Land isn't your thing, you can always reread The Maldive Shark or Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, his collection of poems on America's Civil War.
* What is the longest poem in American literature, you ask? It is, as of this post, the science fiction epic: Space an Odyssey in Rhyme.
