{"id":11145,"date":"2012-01-17T08:30:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-16T19:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11145"},"modified":"2012-01-16T21:17:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-16T08:17:33","slug":"tuesday-poem-my-father-the-oceanographer-by-frankie-mcmillan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/01\/17\/tuesday-poem-my-father-the-oceanographer-by-frankie-mcmillan\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “My Father, The Oceanographer” by Frankie McMillan"},"content":{"rendered":"

My father, the oceanographer<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

knew the language of whales<\/p>\n

yet tripped over the sound<\/p>\n

of his own name<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They say the cure for death<\/p>\n

is drowning and for a lisp<\/p>\n

a bucket of salt water<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In white gumboots he entered<\/p>\n

the stomach of a whale<\/p>\n

sat brooding under the great arched bones<\/p>\n

of a church<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

invoking the mantra of LFA sonar<\/p>\n

whale fall<\/p>\n

and echolation<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

stripped to his underwear,<\/p>\n

so great was the heat, and<\/p>\n

blubber <\/em>he said<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

now there was a word to make you weep<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

(c) Frankie McMillan<\/p>\n

~ published in Turbine 2011<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About the Poem:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the spirit of the “Poet’s Corner” series I ran through 2009-2010, sometimes I think the very best thing is to ask the poet to speak directly to his or her own work—and it seems a great way to start our new Tuesday Poem year, so I have asked Frankie to do ‘just that’ today:<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m never sure how a poem is \u2018made\u2019 but once I have a good opening line it gives me the courage to explore the possibilities. It\u2019s a hit and miss method and out of the many poems I attempt only a few survive. I think this poem may have echoes of the biblical story, Jonah and the whale. The fact my father hardly talked to me as a child may also have informed the poem. Or then again, I\u2019d seen the film, \u2018The King\u2019s Speech\u2019 which might have worked its way in with whales. I imagine a lot of poets work in this subconscious fashion.” \u00a0 <\/em>~ Frankie McMillan<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>About the Poet:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Frankie, with her usual modesty, submitted the following bio:<\/p>\n

“Frankie McMillan is a short story writer and poet. Recent poetry has appeared in Turbine, Snorkel, Jaam, Trout<\/span> and Cincinnati Review<\/span> (US.) Her first collection of poems, Dressing for the Cannibals<\/em> (Sudden Valley Press) was published in 2009. In that same year she won the New Zealand Poetry Society International Competition.”<\/p>\n

But I thought the following might<\/em> also be of interest:<\/p>\n

Frankie McMillan holds a MA in Creative Writing (with Distinction) from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University.\u00a0 She held the Creative New Zealand Todd Bursary in 2005 and her debut short story collection The Bag Lady’s Picnic<\/em> (Shoal Bay Press, 2001)\u2014described as “dazzling” by the NZ Listener\u2014received widespread critical acclaim. Frankie’s short stories have appeared in Best New Zealand Fiction 5 <\/em>and 6 <\/em>(Vintage: 2008; 2009) <\/em>and Essential New Zealand Short Stories<\/em> (Vintage 2009) and both her poetry and short fiction have been widely published and anthologised.\u00a0 She is currently a creative writing tutor at Hagley Writers’ Institute.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My father, the oceanographer   knew the language of whales yet tripped over the sound of his own name   They say the cure for death is drowning and for a lisp a bucket of salt water   * In white gumboots he entered the stomach of a whale sat brooding under the great arched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11145"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11161,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145\/revisions\/11161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}