Sailing without Ahab

by Steve Mentz

ISBN: 9781531506322

Published: 2024-04-02

Navigate the Depths of a Timeless Classic, Reimagined. Come sail with I. We're not taking the same trip, though you might recognize the familiarcourse. This time, the Pequod's American voyage steers its course acrossthe curvature of the Word Ocean without anyone at the helm. We are leaving one man and his madness on shore. Our ship overflows with glorious plurality - multiracial, visionary, queer, conflicted, polyphonic, playful, violent. But on this voyage something is different. Today we sail headless without any Captain. Instead of binding ourselves to the dismasted tyrant's rage, the ship's crew seeks only what we will find: currents teeming with life, a blue-watered alien globe, toothy cetacean smiles from vasty deeps. Treasures await those who sail without. This cycle of one hundred thirty-eight poems - one for each chapter in Moby-Dick, plus the Etymology, Extracts, and Epilogue - launches into oceanic chaos without the stabilizing mad focus of the Nantucket captain. Guided...