Hymn to the Chesapeake

The Chesapeake region has inspired and nurtured humanity for millennia. Long before the crossing of the Mayflower to this region, native Americans lived in harmony with the bounty of the land and seascape. The Pilgrims sought refuge in the new country when they landed in the marshes of the Chesapeake. Challenged by the thick forests, the climate, disease, the incredibly strong nature, the early settlements nearly died out. Humanity has been drawn to the natural beauty and bounty of the Chesapeake for as long as we can remember. Pirates, settlers, presidents, inventors, artists, poets, writers, musicians, farmers, fishermen, immigrants, people seeking refuge, livelihood, homestead, a way of life, their place.

Robert P. Arthur may be the finest poet ever to target the Eastern Shore of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay. Growing up in the small town of Melfa, he absorbed Eastern Shore language, culture, and bloodline. He says that knowledge of the water and people, storms at sea and sinking islands was “thrust” upon him; but leaving the shore as often as he did left him a preservationist at heart—this book his edifice. Into these poems he has poured not only himself but also half-forgotten towns, unpredictable stretches of water, watermen and waterwomen, oyster wars, moonshiners, and pirates, as well as sea grasses, water fowl, the photography of A. Aubrey Bodine and voices of the bay not his own.

So many doomed things are held in place in this book. So many shinings.