Publishing Company Blog | A whale of a poem

Written By Unknown on Friday, October 4, 2013 | 9:24 AM

What do whales, urban legends and poetry share in common?

Yesterday was National Poetry Day in the UK, and being a fan of poetry, I had to celebrate. However, since I'd been busy writing all week, I didn't get the chance to observe it properly until after I'd snuggled under a down-filled cover in the darkness with my little book light.

Whilst reading poet Anthony Carelli's amusing and engaging debut book, Carnations: Poems [Princeton University Press, 2011; Amazon UK; Amazon US/kindle US], I ran across a little poem that had been inspired by a truly weird event that happened in a small coastal town in Oregon, just south of Seattle, where I grew up. This was the story of a truly, um ... unique ... solution that the locals living in Florence, Oregon used to deal with the 45 foot 8 ton carcass of an adult grey whale that had washed ashore and was stinking up their little community (some reports say it was a sperm whale, but they are mistaken, it was a grey whale).

This crazy story was so famous that many people thought it was an urban legend. However, it really did happen, as the embedded video will prove.

Since today is Friday, I thought you might wish to ease into the weekend by reading this poem -- and watching the video of the actual event as it unfolded on 12 November 1970.

The Crucifixion

The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.

~Paul Linnman of KATU-TV

What now? In a forty-five-foot, eight-ton mound, the dead sperm whale

washed a question ashore: once given, how do you go about giving god back?

So isn't it shameful that we, still unknowing, will answer with dynamite?

Monkish distraction: this quick digging the pits beneath the enormous

bearded flank, handkerchiefs guarding our faces from the real work at hand,

which is looking—isn't it?—a difficult looking at slipping away, an end

larger than ours, decay. That's the task we all return to, however briefly,

when the easier business of shovels is done. Backs on dunes, sandwiches

on our sandy laps, we try to watch the blubbered hall go on not moving.

There's not much to see. Early clouds the size of countries ride over us

and slip off unrememberable. New questions flock. Spirals of terns and gulls

collapse from the sky to pick at the carcass staunch as a church. A god

has come. What will make it matter? Fire, nails, camera, action. As if

we make the unimaginable more: we plant the charge, we run the cables.

——Anthony Carelli, Carnations (2011). Republished with permission.

The inspiration (the video):

[Video link]

Currently, it is the policy of the Oregon State Parks Department to bury whale carcasses where they land. If the sand is not deep enough, they are relocated to another beach and buried there.

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Read a few more poems from this book:

"The Crucifixion" [PDF]

"The Sabbath" [PDF]

"The Disciples" [PDF]

"Agnus Dei" [PDF]

You may also want to read the behind-the-scenes story of the world-famous exploding whale story.

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Grrlscientist can also be found here: Maniraptora. She sometimes lurks on social media: facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Pinterest and of course, she's quite active on twitter: @GrrlScientist