{"id":39542,"date":"2018-10-09T11:29:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T17:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=39542"},"modified":"2018-10-10T01:09:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T07:09:38","slug":"stripping-the-world-of-beautiful-danger-rob-carneys-the-book-of-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/stripping-the-world-of-beautiful-danger-rob-carneys-the-book-of-sharks\/","title":{"rendered":"Stripping the World of Beautiful Danger: Rob Carney’s The Book of Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Book of Sharks<\/em>\u00a0sounds like one of those fabulous fictional works that exist only in an author\u2019s imagination, but in fact, Rob Carney has written an ambitious book of shark poetry that lives up to its mythological title.<\/p>\n

His piercing shark poems have been swimming into ecological poetry journals a few at a time for a number of years: in 2013, \u201cSeven Pages from the Book of Sharks\u201d won the annual poetry prize from\u00a0Terrain.org<\/u>; in 2014, \u201cSeven Circles in the Book of Sharks,\u201d won the Robinson Jeffers\/Tor House Foundation Poetry Prize; and in 2016, another frenzy of shark poems appeared in\u00a0Uncivilised\u00a0<\/em>[sic]\u00a0Poetics<\/em>, volume 10.<\/p>\n

The last is part of the \u201cDark Mountain Project,\u201d out of the United Kingdom, which has been publishing an especially intriguing series of literary anthologies based on a premise that the current social, economic, and ecological unravelling is a consequence of false stories we tell ourselves about \u201cprogress.\u201d In the formulation of the Dark Mountain Manifesto<\/em>, storytelling is not just an amusement but a source of potent metaphors, the magical incantations that create reality. The editors of\u00a0Uncivilised Poetics\u00a0<\/em>insist that poetry is a necessary response to the crumbling narratives of\u00a0the modern world, a disheveled and unsettling alternate reality that \u201crefuses the logical, reductionist, materialist aspects of industrial culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney\u2019s\u00a0Book of Sharks<\/em>\u00a0exemplifies uncivilised poetics. His sharks are fierce Jungian archetypes, toothy shadows cruising through a turbulent collective unconscious. The poems form around invented myths and folktales that spring from an imaginary, deeply grounded culture, one that could conceivably be our own if it were radically transformed by the re-enchantment of the world.<\/p>\n

The Book of Sharks<\/em>\u00a0is essentially one long poem\u00a0 \u2014 seven sets of seven poems collected into cycles according to the magical calculus of folktales. Each poem is punctuated either with a tiny illustration of a shark tooth or a little celestial orb that looks like the planet Jupiter (Jupiter, Florida is a famous destination for \u201cshark diving,\u201d where people lowered in metal cages swim among sharks). The mythmaking works the image of sharks as classic sea-monsters, coldblooded, ancient creatures that evolved more than 416 million years ago during the Devonian \u201cAge of Fishes.\u201d Sharks are the jump-scare in horror movies. Their essence is their bite, which is their only tangible feature. They constantly grow new teeth and shed old ones. In the fossil record, shark teeth are all that remain since shark\u2019s bodies are built on a structure of cartilage. Carney interprets this strange combination of eternity and transience as a myth:<\/p>\n

In a story seldom remembered, sharks were ghosts<\/em><\/p>\n

guarding the afterlife<\/em><\/p>\n

Since their rendered bodies had no skeletons,\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

just teeth.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These ghost-sharks pass judgement on the souls of the dead.\u00a0 The worst sin, according to sharks, is the extermination of large predators which is to say, stripping the world of beautiful danger,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If they killed a bear, or left a wolf\u2019s mate howling\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

and the water is cold as a shark\u2019s eyes.<\/em><\/p>\n

And then they see the fins.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Throughout the poem the sharks are teachers, sometimes in parables, and sometimes explicitly. As Prometheus gave fire to humanity, sharks give sharp, cutting things \u2014 bear traps, scythes, sandpaper and nails.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some say sharks are the ocean\u2019s blueprint for tools<\/em><\/p>\n

a set of designs for us to imitate.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In earlier versions, Carney called these poems \u201ccircles\u201d and they do circle, retelling a story with a new twist, or coming back to a repeated phrase, only to take off in some new direction.\u00a0 One recurring character is a boy who tells his own life through stories about sharks:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The best explanation I know was offered by a boy.<\/em><\/p>\n

His father was dead, and his mother couldn\u2019t hear.<\/em><\/p>\n

He said, \u201cSharks are the ocean\u2019s way of talking.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like talking with your hands.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In another circle, Carney imagines placing sharks into constellations in order to elevate them to a state of divinity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We could draw new lines across the night<\/em><\/p>\n

teach a son or a daughter, \u201cthose three there together,
\nthat\u2019s the fin.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The\u00a0Book of Sharks\u00a0<\/em>is so whimsical that when the punches hit there is an extra force of surprise. Carney raises psychological monsters and then re-tells their story to make them part of a human story. In his telling, the essence of the crisis, the unravelling, is that we are so terrified of our metaphorical sharks we think we can\u2019t live with them. But Carney knows that we can\u2019t live without them, either. He wonders,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the end, standing at the gates of heaven,<\/em><\/p>\n

What if we are asked one question: \u201dHow are my sharks?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Book of Sharks
\n<\/em>Rob Carney
\n<\/em>Black Lawrence Press
\n2018
\n75p.
\n$15.95.<\/p>\n

Wasatch Wordsmiths<\/a> present Sugar Slam<\/em>, featuring Rob Carney, Thursday, Oct. 11, 8 pm at Watchtower Cafe<\/a>, 1588 S. State, Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Book of Sharks\u00a0sounds like one of those fabulous fictional works that exist only in an author\u2019s imagination, but in fact, Rob Carney has written an ambitious book of shark poetry that lives up to its mythological title. His piercing shark poems have been swimming into ecological poetry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1518,"featured_media":39543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2589,6,35],"tags":[2751,3312,3313],"class_list":["post-39542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews-literary-arts","category-current_edition","category-literary-arts","tag-rob-carney","tag-wasatch-wordsmiths","tag-watchtower-cafe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/book-of-sharks.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 16:38:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39542"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39554,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39542\/revisions\/39554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}