Sea Legend and Other Poems (Mark Callanan)

Sea Legend and Other Poems written and read by Mark Callanan
Listening Time: Approx. 25 minutes
10-digit ISBN: n/a
13-digit ISBN: 978-1-926919-05-8

At the centre of Sea Legend and Other Poems is a sequence of nautically themed pieces in which images of mermaids recur, suggesting a tension between the immortalizing capabilities of legend and the finite nature of life.

Like the giant squid in a museum case from the poem “Kraken,” their presence and passing function as memento mori. Mark Callanan is one of Canada’s “best young and established writers” (Daniel Wells, Canadian Notes and Queries).

Sea Legend and Other Poems includes poems originally published in Callanan’s chapbook Sea Legend (Frog Hollow Press, 2010), which was shortlisted for the bpNichol Chapbook Poetry Award and won an Alcuin Society award for book design, and a selection of previously unpublished poems.

Whitbourne's Mermaid

She was visible for a moment only, long enough the captain knew for certain that he’d seen her, her breasts like delicate sand dollars, a wake of hair trailing down her neck; more girl in form than woman, really. But that beauty, that rare creature must have recognized something wolfish in his gaze, for she turned tail and buried herself beneath the waves. Rumour has it he followed and caught her, emerged stark naked and dripping water, praising sea legends and the siren’s element. Though, once, while liquored up on heavy grog and singing every ballad we could think of, he confessed the seam of her dive was a quiet furrow, a locked oyster shell and other veiled analogies.


This Canadian poetry audiobook brought to you by Rattling Books of Newfoundland and Labrador.