The Lancers of Nantucket: posthuman poem

• Main Author: Foltz, C.M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Posthumanism Research Institute 2024
• Subjects: Nantucket; Sirius; White whale
• Online Access: https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/posthumanismstudies/article/view/4497

Dear Editors: My name is Chris Foltz (CM Foltz), and I am submitting my poem "The Lancers of Nantucket" for publication in interconnections. This poem is about many things, but the prominent themes center on Nantucket, MA, USA, as emblematic of historical events about whaling around the world, and the text engages cross-themes from Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Robert Lowell's "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket," and the history of the Spanish conquest of South America (where the whale Mocha Dick was killed off the coast). At the heart of this poem lies a retelling of Nantucket's meaning in light of human conquest and search for power in the world that undermines ecological place-ness and questions anthropocentric perspectives.The poem questions historiography through the killing of the white whale, Mocha Dick, as a symbol of contemporary ecology, animal rights, and ecological moral responsibility. In addition, there are connections among the color "white": the color of Moby Dick (based on Mocha Dick), the color of the star Sirius (as a binary star--this relates the interconnected duality of all living beings, and it was used by sailors to guide their paths), the color of numerous historical artifacts, and allusions to literary pieces such as Wallace Stevens’s “The Idea of Order at Key West” and other instances. Formally, the poem includes ten sections with varying meters, including one section framed narratively. I consider the poem a posthuman critique of human materialism. My poems have appeared in ISLE (Oxford Univ. Press), the Comstock Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and others, and I teach in the English department at the University of North Texas, USA. Thank you for taking time to read my poem, and I hope to hear positively from you in the future.Regards,C.M. Foltz