Skip to content
poets.ca circle logo black transparent

League of Canadian Poets

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
×
  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP

Ship’s Glossary by Michael Goodfellow

By League of Canadian Poets | June 8, 2023
Poem title: Ship’s Glossary Poet name: Michael Goodfellow Poem: Slip hooks, lashings, boatfall, sheer off —a sign for what to do in case of wreck, the things it meant roped down, tarped off below. No words for a kind of splash, the engine room where light doesn’t reach, the sound tires made when they pull off the ramp or for a wind taut cord, tight enough for a gull to grip. That the dinghy never had to be lowered, that no one had fallen off. How easily cable became a kind of land, how the bow passed through the water like water. How the ship lurched the length of its darkened coil. Say that it happened. The drowning vernacular —loss, passing, accident— nouns for what never happened clung to chance like mussels to a sunk hull. The real mussels never let go. Say that water passed above them like foil. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Michael Goodfellow Previously published in Naturalism, an Annotated Bibliography (Gaspereau Press, 2022). Michael Goodfellow is the author of the poetry collections Naturalism, An Annotated Bibliography (2022) and Folklore of Lunenburg County (2024), both published by Gaspereau Press. His poems have appeared in the Literary Review of Canada, The Dalhousie Review, The Cortland Review, Reliquiae and elsewhere. He lives in Nova Scotia.
Posted in Poetry Pause
Support poets and poetry in Canada. Donate today.

Established in 1966, the League of Canadian Poets is a National Arts Service Organization dedicated to supporting poets, building poetic communities, supporting inclusive and equitable free expression, and promoting Canadian poets and poetry. 

Site Links

  • About
  • Programs & Services
  • Awards & Contests
  • Microgrants & Bursaries
  • Poetry Community
  • Join
  • Support the LCP
Member Hub

Get In Touch!

  • League of Canadian Poets
    C/O Centre for Social Innovation
    720 Bathurst St
    Toronto ON
    M5S 2R4
     

  • (416) 504-1657

  • [email protected]

  • The League of Canadian Poets operates remotely; in-person office hours are by appointment only. 

"Poetry means having the courage to forage the depthsof what makes & unmakes us."

–Adebe DeRango-Adem, Author of Vox Humana, 2023 Raymond Souster Award Winner

Donate Today
Poetry needs superheroes. A donation to the League of Canadian Poets supports poets and poetry from coast to coast.

The office of the League of Canadian Poets is situated in the land of Tkaronto which is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

Footer-logos-resized-new

© 2023 League of Canadian Poets

GoDaddy Web Design
Scroll To Top