I’d only packed one bag spare shirts and underwear the usual stuff not really taking into account the length of the voyage we set sail from Massachusetts on a clear day after a last meal at Jake’s Lobster Shack likely to be our last fresh food for quite some time as we boarded I heard a loud crashing sound that resonated in waves but it seemed no-one else had heard it it must have been the music of loneliness already playing inside my head pulses of sadness tracing their way across the billions of neural connections every path being forged anew for the rest of my life
the next time I was consciously awake I was in a darkened room swaying erratically with the gusting wind my camera was in my bag and checking it was loaded I headed up to the main deck the sun was very low in the sky and I quickly began to shoot the masts and rigging all of it silhouetted against a vermilion horizon it seemed I was looking at the world through old glass warped and discolored there were nails everywhere partially hammered and broken off the sky amplified my despair at the lacerating fragments wherever we were going there would be palaces and slavery and endless roads of pain.
Setting Off
Paul Ilechko
Three Questions for Paul Ilechko
What inspired your choice of genre and/or form for "Setting Off"?
Almost two years ago I started reading Matt Kish's magnum opus "Moby-Dick in Pictures." It's a picture for each page of the original novel, with a few words from the page that shows where his inspiration came from. As I worked through it, some of the pages triggered me to write new poems, in a mixture of lyric and narrative forms.
Can you walk us through your creative process for the piece?
Some of the poems were inspired by the illustrations, some by the actual words on the page, and all of them by my memories of reading the original novel many years ago. Several of the poems move the story into the present day, including "Setting Off."
What is the significance of the piece to you?
As it's one of my all time favorite novels, and as I'm a former visual artist turned writer, this was a very meaningful work for me. In fact, it's the centerpiece of my next book which will be out in early 2026.
Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, Atlanta Review, Permafrost, and Pirene’s Fountain. His book “Fragmentation and Volta” was published in 2025 by Gnashing Teeth Publishing. His next book, “Post Moby,” will be out in 2026.