on 8/15/03 11:21 AM, Patrick McManus at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Arni is that you????????????????/
> whaling again????????????????/
> bad boy????????????
> shall we see whaling poems ????????????

Patrick,

No, it's not me. Not personally. I did earn some money by our commercial
whaling as a student doing summer jobs around 1970, but I am so much older
now, that was then and this is now.

I do recall a booklength 'whale poem' by Heathcote Williams called, I think,
'Whale Music', which he used to travel around with to read to different
people back in the 1980s. I don't expect I'll attempt to better that, or be
inspired enough by the present situation to even try.

As for 'bad boy', au contraire, Patrick. Sitting alone in my corner I keep
muttering to myself, 'what a good boy am I!' Especially since I didn't make
the contested decision to start 'scientific' whaling, no more than I expect
the British poets on this list to have consciously decided to build
Sellafield and pour all that amount of deadly waste into the sea in order to
threaten all marine life north of Scotland. At least I reckon that causes
far more hazard to life on sea and land than does the catching of 38
mink-whales, which is now the issue, not that I believe stupid acts should
be seen as an entry into a competition of foolhardiness between insensitive
governments. Nor do I expect the American poets on this list to have made
the conscious decision to allow whaling by 'native Americans' off the
north-west coast of America. (The USA in fact catches more whales than any
nation / government on this earth - talk about double standards).

Whaling is and will probably remain a contentious issue for many years to
come, not least because it's been taken over by 'sentimental reason'. The
annual news from the International Whaling Commission only suggest that the
issue will never be properly resolved, basically because the IWC has by the
undermining of it by Greenpeace and others been castrated and consequently
made incapable of solving anything at all.

Personally, I admit to finding it very difficult to make up my mind about
the rights and wrongs here and will probably never be a firm believer in
either pro or con. Still, I do believe the present decision by our fisheries
minister ( a former student of mine at college who also played the role of a
general in my college-production of Oh, What a Lovely War in 1976) has made
a very serious mistake by allowing the 'scientific' catching of 38
mink-whales. Even though the decision has been looming for many many years,
so many years, in fact, that you could argue that what's happened was
inevitable. (Thank lobbyists). But the whole thing smacks of
double-standards, even though it is true that we have no idea what effect
the enormous growth of the whale 'population' after the international ban on
commercial whaling has on our own mainstay fishing industry.

But no matter how you turn this coin, one thing is very certain, whaling at
this time is a disaster for the tourist 'industry' (Not that we eat
tourists, although we used to eat whale-meat). All the small firms around
the coast making a fair amount of money from sailing tourists out to watch
whales at play are furious and may end up suing the government. They argue
that whale-watching is far more beneficial for the national economy than
whale-catching.

I'm pretty sure there's more to be said on this, but I'll stop for the
moment. I'm sending this to both lists (Brit-Po and PoetryEtc. sorry for
cross-posting) since you sent your questions to both, though of late I
generally only submit to PoetryEtc.

Best

Árni


-- 
Árni Ibsen
Stekkjarkinn 19,
220 Hafnarfjördur,
Iceland

tel.: +354-555-3991
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.centrum.is/~aibsen/