Harborless

by Cindy Hunter Morgan

Harborless, a collection of poems informed by Great Lakes shipwrecks, is part history and part reinvention. The poems explore tragic wrecks in rivers and lakes, finding and forming artistic meaning from destruction and death. Each poem begins in a real, historical moment that Cindy Hunter Morgan transforms into an imagined truth. The imaginative element is essential to this work as it provides a previously unseen glimpse into the lives affected by shipwrecks. The poems in Harborless confront the mysteries surrounding the objects that cover the floor of the Great Lakes by both deepening our understanding of the unknown and teaching great empathy for a life most of us will never know.

Morgan creates a melodic and eerie scene for each poem, memorializing ships through lines such as, "Fishermen wondered why they caught Balsam and Spruce / their nets full of forests, not fish," and "They touched places light could not reach." Most of the poems are titled after the name of a ship, the year of the wreck, and the lake in which the ship met disaster. The book's time frame spans from wrecks that precede the Civil War to those involving modern ore carriers. Throughout this collection are six "Deckhand" poems, which give face to a fully imagined deckhand and offer a character for the reader to follow, someone who appears and reappears, surfacing even after others have drowned. Who and what is left behind in this collection speaks to finality and death and "things made for dying." Very little is known when a ship sinks other than the obvious: there was a collision, a fire, a storm, or an explosion. Hunter works to fill in these gaps and to keep these stories alive with profound thoughtfulness and insight.

Tony Hoagland said that one of the powers of poetry is to locate and assert value. This collection accomplishes that task through history and imagination, producing lake lore that will speak to historians and those interested in ships, poetry, and the Great Lakes.

Genres: Poetry, College

296 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 2017

Reviews

[Sydney ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very beautiful collection. It made shipwreck stories feel so real. It is an event that I forget actually happen/s. All of the descriptions are so vivid and well said. It was also interesting because a lot of these wrecks have occurred in areas I have been before which is super cool.

[Sean Kottke · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary collection of poems inspired by Great Lakes shipwrecks, each entry launches from a specific (and often tragic) historical maritime disaster and transforms it into a potent piece of art. The power of Morgan's work is dramatically raised by an afterword that documents each of the shipwrecks, where I realized how easily I could recall so much of the corresponding poems' language.

[Claudia Cheyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book caught my eye when I was in the mood to read poetry. Cindy Hunter Morgan has woven shipwrecks that occurred on the Great Lakes into poems written from the point of view of someone whose life was affected by the incident. It may have been the ship's captain, a crew member or a witness who stood on the shore and watched the scene unfold before them. There is a list of all the shipwrecks and descriptions of each tragedy at the back of the book. This is somewhat sad when you start thinking about the tremendous loss of lives due to these accidents on the Great Lakes, but it is a very creative way to tell these stories. This is a book that history buffs or just about anyone can enjoy.

[Tatiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the various tales of the shipwrecks and deckhand's tales. My favorite poems included an erasure in a four color process. There was a haunting quality to this poem that fit the theme of the book almost too well. Another favorite was "Henry Clay, 1851" about the loss of bales of wool the woman on the shore carded and spun and turned into mittens and sweaters. I even enjoyed the prose poems about peas pouring about the deck in "Mesquite." I could engage with each of these poems and never felt as if the author was trying to hard. See for yourself, I really enjoyed this book.

[Charlene Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't like poetry, please look at this book anyway! If you like poetry, you've hit a jackpot!!
The Great Lakes /Great Books Club of Door County introduced me to it. This book is about Great Lakes shipwrecks and life. She has a huge variety of poems, and the way the book is put together is fantastic! We were very lucky to have 2 poets attend the book club mtg and help us learn about the various styles. They also told us the order of poems/how a book of poetry is constructed takes great skill. We discussed the interesting point that these are not in chronological order, for a reason. These are well done, relatable, intriguing, and more. Men & women of many ages in the group found things they enjoyed in this book, and learned something.

[jimtown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harborless is a surprising blend of history and poetry. These are some of the easiest to read and understand poems I've read, granted I don't read a lot of poetry. The lyrical words bring these ships and the people that worked them back to life. We get a glimpse of how things might have been. How does the author know these things? This book would make a great gift for a lover of local history. It really captures the imagination. Very well done.

[Curtis Anthony Bozif · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting stories about the shipwrecks, but not the strongest poetry.

Read Dave Lucas's Weather if your looking for some good Great Lakes poetry, in my opinion.