Veronika K Log Book: a found poem

3/30/2017

Looking for one more poem to round out a book I'm working on, and found this tonight. Not the poem I'm looking for, but I thought it deserves a little love... so here it is. The Veronica K was the boat we built in the winter of 1988 outside Portland. We ran her up the Inside Passage that June. Somewhere I still have the Alaska flag I flew from her VHF antenna.

Veronika K Log Book
A Found Poem

1988
in the margin: Tarot: The New Handbook for the Apprentice
June 17: Finn Bay Found our way in by Radar.
June 18 - drenched the carpet today
June 20: Saw whales outside Elfin Cove
forecast is for 40 knot winds and seas to 20 feet…
looks like we’re here for a while.
6/26 – Arrive Kenai 1900– roughest weather of the trip
Sat. July 16: didn’t fish the east side opening – leak in reduction gear.
Mon. July 11 – 2323 total, 1800 reds.
Sun. July 17 – didn’t fish E-side – chiropractor.
Sat.: Didn’t fish due to weather.
Sun. July 24 - We didn’t catch shit.

1989 Work List:
Wind screen for bridge
Extend stack
Protective board for wires behind helm / top bunk
Install fresh water tank
Drawers?
Rehang hook for EPIRB
Spray skirt for bow?
Cabinets for focsle?
Hook up antennas
Coolant
5200 seam around rubrail
Tighten/check/spray all elect. fittings/battery cables
Check all fluids
Lube reel/fairleads/Ram
Carpet interior
Check survival suits

7/13/89
No oil tar balls, sheen in small rip. Choppy, foggy.
7/19/89 Fish & Game called off the season. Too much Exxon oil in the inlet.

1991
July 20, Sat – Jeff Snyder was killed in a car wreck off Island Lake Road at 2:30 pm. Nobody found out what happened until the next day. Fishing suddenly seemed unimportant. F & G cancelled Monday’s period due to poor escapement & “what appears to be a weak run.”

Jeff Snyder, 1990. Still miss him.

2 Comments

essaysoriginreview.com link

3/20/2020 06:57:52 pm

This poem is one of the best that I have read. I feel like I can go and read this for a couple more weeks. I know that it is too long for me to read a single poem, but there are just so many things to get through here. I feel like this might just be my favorite literature of all time, and I am not even being sarcastic, it is what I truly feel at this moment in time.

Elisa link

7/25/2023 08:58:08 pm

Thanks great bllog post

Gillnet Dreams
Patrick Dixon

I am a poet and writer of creative non-fiction and fiction. I also edit fisherpoetry for National Fisherman magazine.

More of my work can be seen at www.IntheTote.com, a site I curate that displays the work of the readers at the annual Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon, where I have performed for the past 18 years. I edited Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology, a seven-book set of writing celebrating the commercial fishing industry, published in August, 2014.

I write on two blogs, From the Field is about photography and the other is about fishing, life on the water, and really, everything else. That would be Gillet Dreams version one, the earlier version of this one, which has lots of past writings.