The Cannery’s Wake
Sardines

by Bernadette Mayer

In the wake of the closing of the nation’s last sardine cannery at Gouldsboro, Maine, these poems showed up at the office door. They are published here as The Cannery’s Wake.

Sardines
is a yellow, red, orange, black & green
word. I got sardines at the dollar store
where everything except sardines is more
than a dollar, for sixty cents, as they should be
my father used to take sardine sandwiches to work
perhaps therefore, I love sardines. when people
used to talk about the subway, they’d say:
we were packed like sardines which sends a message:
small, cheap, tightly packed, anchovies for the poor
or you too can be both colorful & inexpensive as
a really snappy, tiny bright blue convertible
in which you can enjoy the good things about
feeling like a sardine but maybe you'd rather
be a striped bass or be a manatee with me
or a grand whale, forgetful of nothing even
being so big, the ocean’s CEO, you’ll take home
a giant amount of cash when the ocean goes bust
so you can share it even with the downtrodden
sardines who get packed in cans in Thailand
& shipped to the family dollar store for Bernadette

Where Are the Stockton Sardines?

(for all who worked at the Stockton sardine factory, 1917)

by Bernadette Mayer

Folks remember. Wives, mothers, grannies even,
used to sit around the woodstove after supper,
telling about the days of sardines,
how they earned almost a decent day’s pay
for “crammin’ those silver slipperies
into those damned little tins.”
Long hours of lopping off heads, then tails, while
laughing at somebody’s bawdy joke or juicy gossip.
But oh those stinging cuts, then chopped off
digits, blood pouring down conveyor belts.
“Not complainin’, mind ya,” said Maude Brown
or Flora Ellis. “Long as sardines were runnin’,
there was money for food at the company store.”
But all the lotion, salves, and fancy perfumes,
even bath salts, couldn't drown the stench.

 

Song of Sardines

by Carolyn Page

                                                      Returning
                                                      We spawn silver
                                                      Weaving Whales
                                                      We sing dark shadows
                                                      Back to the light of day

 

Sardine Events Schedule

July 30, 730 PM
sardine poetry night at the Wayne (Maine) Library

August 1 – 30
Images of the Sardine Industry - A photo/art exhibit at the Kramer Gallery, Belfast - focussing on the Belfast sardine cannery, with images from the Belfast Historical Society, Penobscot Marine Museum, and local artists.

August 4, 630-800 PM
Herring Gut Learning Center, Port Clyde sardine talk and poems with a display of historic photos, aprons, scissors, timecards, trays and film footage (including the Port Clyde sardine factory fire and explosion!)

August 21
Belfast Harbor Fest and Sardine Extravaganza - sponsored by the Belfast Rotary, with boat races and displays speakers, musical performances, poetry and art, a visit by the sardine carrier Jacob Pike, and much more, with a culminating event at the Belfast pedestrian bridge and sardine plant site