Deep within the ship’s hull the meat marinates. Salted fish and beef soak in briny waters as the waves lap at the wood barrier. Men eat off wooden plates with wooden knives and drink beer from wooden mugs. Everything is tree and sea and cattle, pig bones scattered around the deck near the kitchen. How suddenly it sinks. The ship a wreck to balance in the deep water. Under the sea’s surface the meat marinates; the cattle graze at the seaweed that strangles the oak tree whose limbs curl and bend in the salty water.
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beccaaudra 
another mesmerizing tale, this line “Everything is tree and sea and cattle,” especially.
Thanking you Craig, will be checking yours out tomoz 😀
A unique telling of a ship. I can’t put my finger on the purpose behind the “the meat marinates” anaphora, though my ignorance shouldn’t detract from its skillful execution.
I think I liked the idea that using the same phrase bridged the difference in situation, ie above water vs below water, and also acts as a bridge in time somehow. Thanks for making me think about the why! 😀
Where is the anaphora in this piece?
I suppose my interpretation of this term is a little loose here because I’m in rhetoric mode from school; but the repetition of “Deep within the ship’s hull the meat marinates” and “Under the sea’s surface the meat marinates” feels to me like anaphora, even though the clauses aren’t successive.
This is interesting, after I commented I looked it up because I only know anaphora as a linguistic term meaning a right-branching sentence (so I was therefore confused, as these are both examples of cataphora, a left-branching sentence and one of my favourite linguistic things :D). But then I discovered the rhetoric meaning, and it appears that Becca is actually using epistrophe, which is where you repeat something at the end of a line (anaphora being when it repeats at the start of the line.
I think, anyway, I’m trusting wikipedia on this.
😀
Perfect — thanks for following up on that. It looks like epistrophe was the word I was looking for to describe that repetition.
It’s cool, thanks for teaching me something new!
You guys are great. I’m going to include this new knowledge in my next post!
Beautiful work. Very haunting.
Eerie, I like the meat marinating used before and after, and the cattle grazing on the seaweed image.
I read meat marinates as referring to both the actual meat (casks of salted beef for example, which of course you then go on to describe :D), and to the men, sleeping down in the hold surrounded by salted water. I don’t know, I’m surprised it didn’t make sense to anyone because to me the emaning is so obvious! It’s a very logical observation, but without being clichéd.
Also, you know I’m a sucker for anything to do with the sea, so this was always going to be a favourite 😉
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