A Book Report using Cliff’s Notes ( a non-scholarly review)
The Whale filled several hundred pages
the one-legged captain
harpooned his dream
and in the end
went overboard
with his quest
and then in jest
Ishmael told the others
to call him
finding later on
that to be the first line of the novel
he never figured out the folly
involved in trying to end
the great white annoyance
that took so many pages
to explain—
we read it in high school
pretty Moby to say the least
Book reports drowned our free time
waves of motion sickness
froze vacation days
as the ship rocked
and our eyes blurred from the spray
the whale upended all of us
at one time or another
some say a classic
others just want to leave the vessel
and read a good horror novel
rather than suffer the horror
that occurs once
we have gotten past
the introductions with Ishmael.
erin-cilberto
9/30/25
lol, My nightmare book report was Silas Marner. I remember those days of summer that were stolen from us.
Oh brother…they gave us such boring books to read.
Fia, thank you for replying to this piece.
j.
Oh, thank God! For a moment I thought this would be some dry learned lecture, then the first verse got me chuckling. When Ishmael asked the others to call him, I just howled and my wife came back here and asked me what was wrong. I told her, “I’ll just have to read this to you.” So I did, and we both roared with laughter all the way through. Thank you so much for this one, Jake. We really needed that. You have any more like this? I can go put on the popcorn!
ha ha….I don’t even lecture to my classes. All satirical and glad that it could give you a few chuckles. Thanks for letting me know this.
There is truth in this in the fact of me hating Moby Dick with a passion.
j.
Just please give us more of these. You now have a niche market your fans are literally howling for. Doing anything else could be dangerous.
Cleverly penned, Jacob. Amazing write my friend. Appreciate you.
Damian
Thank you, Damian.
j.