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Steve Mentz

@stevementz

#bluehumanities, Shakespeare, swimming, eco-poetry. English prof at St. John's (NYC).

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14.09.2023
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Latest posts by Steve Mentz @stevementz

Hope all's well with you!

22.02.2026 14:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Thanks Karen! I'm glad you liked it!

22.02.2026 14:23 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Glad you liked the essays! And good to hear from another Long Island Sound swimmer!

09.11.2025 20:59 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Sentences and Story in Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket

A few thoughts on Pynchon's Shadow Ticket, which I read slowly over the past few weeks -

stevementz.com/sentences-an...

01.11.2025 17:18 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Come to the Institute for Sacred Music next Th-Fri in New Haven for Water Cosmology! I'll be talking about (what else?) ocean swimming as ecological meditation in the Anthropocene -
ism.yale.edu/events/2025-...

31.10.2025 11:55 πŸ‘ 11 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Β© CBC/Radio-Canada 2025. All rights reserved.

A treat to hear how this podcast on shipwreck from the Canadian Broadcasting Company turned out! With thanks to all the good people from Canada who were involved, and also to Stan Rogers for the music -

www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

27.09.2025 01:16 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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008: A Letter to the Sea In May, I sent out an invitation to sea communities all around the world:Β Write a letter to the sea.Β The eighth letter (in a form of a postcard) arrived on July 28, 2025 – written by Steve Mentz fr…

in May, I published an invitation: Write a letter to the sea. the eighth letter (in a form of a postcard) is written by @stevementz.bsky.social from Branford, Connecticut, USA. Steve is a longtime friend of the Sea Library and a godfather of the Blue Humanities: sea-library.com/2025/08/20/0...

20.08.2025 11:27 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Support Steve Mentz - Swim Across the Sound 2025 I'm excited to join the 2025 Swim Across the Sound! This mission is very important to me and I'm proud to help make a difference. Please join me in supporting cancer patients by making a donation toda...

On Sat Aug 2, I'll be part of a six person relay swimming across Long Island Sound to raise money for St Vincent's hospital in Bridgeport. Link to donate if you'd like to!

charity.pledgeit.org/SwimAcrossTh...

16.07.2025 21:33 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Art in Context | β€œSwimming with Turner” J. M. W. Turner's seascapes demonstrate how his engagements with waterβ€”as subject, substance, and perhaps even collaboratorβ€”explore how humans coexist with one of the most alien features of our enviro...

Come join me in New Haven at the Yale British Art Center for β€œSwimming with Turner” at their amazing J. M. W. Turner show! 12:30 britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-...

13.07.2025 10:42 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I do like those DBTs…

19.06.2025 06:06 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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A fun Wild West Romeo and Juliet at the Globe - with more dancing that you might expect!

stevementz.com

07.06.2025 20:40 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It's pretty great - I need to get to Stratford to see it!

29.04.2025 17:10 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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A new oceanic Shakespeare bust, in the Guildhall at Stratford-upon-Avon! #bluehumanities #atthebottomofshakespearesocean

www.stratfordobserver.co.uk/news/the-lat...

28.04.2025 16:55 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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If this Book were Ocean, how would it feel between your fingers? Wet & slippery, just a bit warmer or colder than the air around it, since the Ocean is our planet’s greatest reservoir of heat.

READ @stevementz.bsky.social & co's OCEANIC NEW YORK: book + ocean + city.

tinyurl.com/42b2ejrx

23.04.2025 18:28 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Reimagining the Poetry Collection: Morgan VΓ΅ and Steve Mentz in Conversation (Online) Join poets Morgan VΓ΅, author of The Selkie, and Steve Mentz, author of Sailing without Ahab: Ecopoetic Travels, for an online reading and discussion of their work.

Tomorrow night, online courtesy of the NY Public LIbrary - in conversation with Morgan Vo about The Selkie and Sailing without Ahab - register here

www.nypl.org/events/progr...

23.04.2025 16:43 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Some thoughts on the Denzel Washington / Jake Gyllenhaal Othello, now on Broadway - stevementz.com/othello-on-b...

17.04.2025 15:37 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Here's the snippet about my book -

03.04.2025 00:47 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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Best New Poetry Books for Adults NYPL's expert librarians and staff read over 250 poetry books to select the 25 picks presented here. These titles demonstrate poetry's ability to shepherd readers through an awesome array of spiritual...

I'm very happy to see *Sailing without Ahab* on the NY Public Library's list of Best Poetry titles!

www.nypl.org/books-more/r...

03.04.2025 00:46 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

^

14.03.2025 23:53 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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And a closer view

14.03.2025 21:31 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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@greenleejw.bsky.social A view of the Cow & Calf at low tide

14.03.2025 21:27 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

Its the Cow & Calf that I went back to in the poems themselves - a kind of recentering via the margins

10.03.2025 17:55 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

It’s gloriously disorienting, which is what the book tries to do also -

10.03.2025 17:54 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I especially love the central place of the Cow and Calf Rocks in this image. I see those rocks almost every day, but when I look out from the shore they are pretty much on the horizon. This map helps remind me that they are also a hinge between my local waters and global flows -

10.03.2025 12:58 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

That's the larger fantasy of the whole book, and the map crystallizes it so amazingly. I still remember looking at the draft image - after a few false starts - and feeling that it was so exactly, strangely, disorientingly right!

10.03.2025 12:55 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

What I love most about this map is its vision of putting two differently sized worlds - the global voyage of the Pequod from Moby-Dick and my own swimming haunts in coastal CT - inside of each other

10.03.2025 12:54 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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I’ve got a framed copy of the book’s cover + the map + a line from one poem about dreaming of a β€œbigger place” in my home office

10.03.2025 12:52 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

So amazing to have this map by @greenleejw.bsky.social in my book!

09.03.2025 22:42 πŸ‘ 20 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

So great!

09.03.2025 22:41 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Looking forward to it!

20.02.2025 14:31 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0