Friday, April 18, 2025

A Jonah by Howie Good

She says I should take a spoon
of black seed oil daily, eat turmeric

and garlic, and cook using only
stainless steel. None of that is likely

any time soon. In the waters off
Patagonia, a kayaker got swallowed,

boat and all, by a whale and lived.



Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose newest poetry books, The Dark and Akimbo, are available from Sacred Parasite, a Berlin-based publisher.

2 comments:

  1. I like this poem a lot. I like how the poet smartly juxtaposes household dangers, those pesky microplastics, which made me change out my cookware and cutting boards, too, to someone surviving being swallowed whole, including the kayak, by a whale nonetheless. There's a message here that I really like, and he's showing the readers that message rather than telling us.

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  2. Best kind of poem in my book—short, simplicity of language and yet literarily creative.

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