The Book of Sharks

by Rob Carney

Poetry. "THE BOOK OF SHARKS is an accomplishment at the micro and macro level. Rob Carney has crafted lines that you'll want to save for your next tattoo inside of efficient poems that touch on creation myth, forgotten industries, and slices of life in villages he manufactures with a creator's divine spark. All of this works on its own inside of a larger, complex quilt that he has woven into an intricate pattern that revisits themes, finishes stories, and reminds you that THE BOOK OF SHARKS is a larger poem that is greater than just its sharpened teeth."--Jesse Parent



"In precise, sharp lines, Rob Carney's THE BOOK OF SHARKS builds and interrogates myth and myth-makers, turning to sharks to also turn inward and outward, exploring one's purpose and place and the stories one tells to make meaning. Here, poems wash out and return like the tides they describe, inviting the reader to feel their weight, as if 'to disappear under the stories / as though they were waves.' In the end, whether in water, sky, or story, Carney invites us to consider the essential motivation of 'moving, arriving, being full, ' what it means to seek."--Callista Buchen



"'Some say sharks are the ocean's anger at us for being in its future, ' writes Rob Carney. I say poems are sharks' way of forgiving us for the soup, the necklaces, the movies, and the mascots. And, let's not even mention climate change. Rob Carney's trenchant, probing poems circle around the self, not so much sensing blood but, perhaps even more dangerously, searching for understanding. Part confession, part documentation, part meditation, these smartly crafted lyrics explore how and why we have and have not allowed sharks (metaphors for so many things) to swim into our lives. This is a major effort from a talented poet."--Dean Rader



"In his ambitious collection, THE BOOK OF SHARKS, Rob Carney reimagines the human world and facets of contemporary society by creating a mythology and origin story that correct the erroneous legend of sharks. In building a new lens through which to view the sea and its most vilified species, Carney opens up a new way to conceive of art, life, storytelling, and the connections among living creatures in the sea, on land, and among the stars. 'Some say sharks are the ocean's anger, ' he repeats in two poems, and later--as the collection evolves--they become 'the ocean's blueprint.' In this collection, comprised of seven sections, containing seven poems each, Carney weds structure and symbolism to reinforce his creation myth; correction and etymology to reconfigure historical facts; and repetition of images and phrases to place these poems--all without titles, bleeding poignantly into one another as part of an ongoing narrative or interconnected species--in the epic tradition. Here we are offered a sympathetic view of sharks, an alternative way to see constellations and their corresponding myths, and a new foundation from which to begin our lives and our stories. Carney's speaker demands that we reexamine what is actually dangerous versus what's been stereotyped so, and most of all he begs us to see ourselves new, 'to bear in mind / we aren't the measure of Creation. Just a part.'"--Lisa Fay Coutley

Genres: Poetry

76 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2018

Reviews

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The edge of the sea is a teacher – so many bones’

Utah poet Rob Carney is a Professor of English and Literature at Utah Valley University. Originally from Washington State he has published 88 Maps, Weather Report, New Fables Old Songs, Story Problems, and now THE BOOK OF SHARKS. His poetry has appeared in Cave Wall, Columbia Journal, Sugar House Review, Terrain: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environments, and Flash Fiction Forward, receiving honors for each. Rob lives in Salt Lake City.

Rob’s poems draw the reader into strange places, moments of reflection and wonder and puzzlement and the search for understanding the meaning o fit all. Some examples follow:

Before mountains rose from the ocean
so clouds had somewhere to arrive,

before ice carved canyons
and brought the valleys soil,

before seeds taught Color to everything
and Color turned Quiet into birds,

before people and singing
and feathers ornamenting dancers

there were sharks,
indifferent to all of it, celebrating none;

their eyes seeing farther than our firelight,
their teeth needing nothing from our farms,

their lives unimproved by the hides we stretch
into drumbeats,

the ocean a rhythm already,
already their home.


Sunday/3:11 PST 3.9ft./9:37 PST 9.5 ft.

When his mom died, her photographs passed to my friend;
and when he died, they passed to me;

and when this town is gone
replaced by another,

they’ll remain –
dusted off for a retrospective;

and long before us, there were herons
gliding down to fish the river mouth,

the ocean admiring their stillness,
and spearing, and blue;

and long before herons,
there were coastal forests;

and before those trees, the moon,
pulling the tides from high to low, and back again.


Rod Carney is a man of nature who understands it and makes it more vivid for each of us. He is an alchemist of words.

[Anne Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tangentially know Rob Carney. His father was a long-time colleague of mine. Rob attended the high school where I taught, though I don't think I ever met him or had him as a student. At his father's memorial service, Rob and his brother both spoke. What a rare gift to be able to speak out of one's own grief. His brother, the more gregarious of the two, spoke with enthusiasm and humor. Then Rob got up to speak and he spoke like a poet, someone who was acutely aware of the importance of picking the exact right word to match the feeling. I was enraptured -- transported to another place where I could touch my own grief at the passing of a friend. When I learned that Rob had published a poetry collection (more than one, actually) I made it my mission to read it (them.) Unfortunately, our public library does not have a copy of any of his books, nor do the local book stores. Eventually I gave up trying to read it for free and ordered my own copy.

The Book of Sharks is meant to be read as a whole, not as separate poems but almost as a story itself. There are recurring themes and pictures that are drawn. I want to sit with them for a while. Make sense of their message in my life.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while you encounter a writer whose work really speaks to you directly, and I'm lucky to have found that with Rob Carney's poetry in The Book of Sharks. Carney has similar ideas to those espoused by Robinson Jeffers in his own poetry, but Carney's approach is a little more grounded and feels more in tune with a practical approach to rethinking one's relationship to the natural world.

The following short poem does a good job of capturing the overall tone of The Book of Sharks (as with all the other verses in this collection, it's untitled):

The man with jaws in his window is the most afraid
he's inessential.

He wants a prop,
a shortcut to identity,

whereas Death knows Its own size already
and doesn't need his bones.

All of the poems in this book are made up of couplets (as in the example above), and those short stanzas give the poems a simple clarity which is highly expressive, and allows Carney's words to easily penetrate the fog of meaning which is a flaw of much modern poetry.

The Book of Sharks is one of the best books I've read in 2020, and I'm planning to read more of Carney's work in the near future.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Review of The Book of Sharks in Artists of Utah, 15 Bytes.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so good! The lore was so rich. As a novel person who rarely dabbles in poetry, what i really really wanted was a fleshed out story crafted from these beautiful tidbits.
Even so, just the poems are wonderful.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As wise and as tightly woven as The Old Man and the Sea, THE BOOK OF SHARKS addresses boyhood, shark lore, life and death, and the brackish waters where the human heart meets the tides. After all, "In the end, standing at the gates of heaven, / what if we're asked one question: 'How are my sharks?'"

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stayed because the first poem had the line, “before rocks rolled down to the shore and became the first seals.”

I’m a sucka for magical realism. Read half the book last night based on that one line.

It’s pretty good. There are moments that suggest magic.