Sailing without Ahab
Ecopoetic Travels
Herman Melville—mystic, orca oracle, and madness miner—left treasures of material for poets in Moby-Dick, and Steve Mentz found his muse in the idea of an Ahab-less Pequod—a multiracial, queer, and cruisier ship on a bountifully blue sea. Mentz is the author of Oceans and An Introduction to the Blue Humanities and teaches English at St. John’s University.
Lines of Succession
Why does not Q. captain the P.?
No one on board can match him —
His indecipherable tattoos, bronzed glories,
His skill with harpoon in boat or at table,
His love and fearlessness and knowledge
Of so many watery parts of the world.
The tradition about harpooner-officers is Dutch,
In which the fat-cutter or specksnyder, the chief harpooner —
On the P. that means Q. —
Assumes Starbuck’s role as under-captain.
Q. disdains rule. What means command to a body
So free? He pads the deck barefoot and silent,
Weapon always to hand, smelling salt air,
Contemplating blood.
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
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