Dedication
To T. W. S.
Ten years ago you found an idle prow
And sent her forth to seek enchanted seas;
Under your wharf she comes to anchor now,
Bearing to you, old friend, her argosies.
About This Book
A sequence of poems that dramatizes life at sea through ballads, lyrics, and dramatic monologues focused on buccaneers, sailors, and the lawless world they inhabit. The pieces alternate between rollicking drinking songs and vivid battle and chase scenes, introspective meditations on exile, mortality, and lost love, and elegiac portraits of execution, marooning, and final rest. Several linked poems trace a seafaring romance and its breakup. Language shifts from brazen and celebratory to mournful and reflective, emphasizing comradeship, daring, greed, and the fatal costs of a life pursued on the open ocean.