writing exercise

Melville has the best chapter titles. I picked up Omoo last week, this beautiful edition from the 60's I found in my library. The dark blue cover is illustrated with a tropical island at night, the
light blue image continuing across the spine onto the back. The illustration is in the style of the woodcuts inside; a series of dark, striated pictures, ominous and whimsical by turns. Just flipping through, I see bonfires in jungles and a seed sprouting in its walnut shell. I also found this pamphlet tucked under the front cover. It's a short expository essay with a lot of parenthetical asides that read like inside jokes. I bet it was for a fancy1967 book club.

I picked one of the chapter titles to use as a title for a new poem. I know this is an old idea, but I think Melville's language is particularly suited for the assignment: completely literal with respect to the contents of the book, utterly cryptic when taken out of context.

here are some of my favorites:
My Reception Abroad
Death and Burial of Two of the Crew
Our Destination Changed
Rope Yarn
Tahiti
They Take Us Ashore -- What Happened There
We Take Unto Ourselves Friends
Cathedral of Papoar -- The Church of the Cocoanuts
Something About the Kannakippers
How They Dress in Tahiti
Same Subject Continued
Something Happens to Long Ghost
Farming in Polynesia
What They Thought of Us in Martair
How We Were to Get to Taloo
Life at Loohooloo
Retiring for the Night -- The Doctor Grows Devout
Which Ends the Book

I think it'll work for short fiction too.