Of Whales by Anthony Caleshu

Of Whales by Anthony Caleshu

OF WHALES is Anthony Caleshu’s second book of poems. Melville and Moby-Dick provide a starting point for Caleshu, who uses the author and his most famous book to push the boundaries of the imagination and language. Like Melville himself, Caleshu is a `skald, who knows how to appropriate the work of others. Highborn stealth’ (as Charles Olson wrote of Melville). Taking episodes from Melville’s life and work, Caleshu rewrites them to personal and dramatic effect in poems which move between the sea and family home. Some of the most ambitious poems take as their spring board Melville’s own source books for MOBY-DICK; works like Owen Chase’s `Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex’ and JN Reynolds’ `Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific’ are treated to new `appropriation’. Melville’s MOBY-DICK has had its share of artist’s using it as a source for their own work, and here Caleshu extends the tradition as he manages to not only rewrite Moby-Dick (word for word, as we find out in one poem) but to venture in the realm of familial relations. Central to the book are poems where a father speaks of Whales (in print; in paint; in tooth, in stone, in coin; in house, in surf, in song, in stars) to his colicky newborn son in the darkest hours of the night. A lucid book which dives deep and away from its sources.

Of Whales is a remarkable work in which the author speaks to his infant son, his words given depth and timelessness by the sea that is a part of their family experience, and by the history of whaling that is the book's other theme.. The language is allusive, folded in on itself, poetry that lives in the space between meanings. It intrigues, entrances, and entertains at the same time... Caleshu has taken his themes and his literary sources and made of them something new and exciting.

-- Don Barnard * The Warwick Review *

No other collection of poems is quite like Of Whales – or more accurately named... Like Moby-Dick itself, this book is about much more than whales, and it has its share of serious and personal poems, such as the surprising 'Neither Your Mother's Nor Mine'. Nevertheless it might be hard to get the most from Of Whales if you do not share at least something of Caleshu's obsession with Moby-Dick and all things to do with both whales and the nineteenth century. Which is not to say that the collection is anything less than linguistically nimble and surprisingly varied, a looking glass into a bizarre world where 'life is more wonder than worry' – for most of the time, at least.

-- Rory Waterman, * Times Literary Supplement *

Anthony Caleshu is the author of two books of poetry and a novella His poems and stories have appeared widely in journals and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Dublin Review, American Literary Review, and Agni Online. He is the editor of the literary journal Short FICTION and teaches at the University of Plymouth in South West England.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781844715022
ISBN 10	1844715027
Title	Of Whales
Author	Anthony Caleshu
Series	Salt Modern Poets
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Salt Publishing
Year published	2010-07-15
Number of pages	96
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable