Table of Contents

The Watch Stands as Written: Voices from the Midwatch

Acknowledgments 

Preface  

Introduction  

Sidelight 1: Land, Sea, and Space: Unusual Places for Poems  

Chapter 1 – As Rhyme Goes By: Complaints About Writing Poetry  

Sidelight 2: Midwatch Misery: Complaints About Writing Poetry on New Year’s Day  

Chapter 2 – Triumph and Tragedy: The Space Race, Popular Culture, and Conflict  

Sidelight 3: Should old acquaintance be forgot…: A Midwatch Poet Responds  

Chapter 3 – Wine, women, and ……  

Sidelight 4: Ships as Women: Personal Pronouns She/Her  

Chapter 4 – Late Night Laughter: Humor on the Midwatch  

Sidelight 5: Lost, but not Forgotten  

Chapter 5 – Duck and Cover: The Threat of Annihilation in Cold War Deck Log Poems 

Sidelight 6: Give Me Liberty……  

Chapter 6 – To Sea or Not to Sea? That’s a Good Question  

Sidelight 7: A Mind of Metal and Grace: Charles J. McMahon, Jr. 

Chapter 7 – Phantoms of the Deep: Hauntings and Visitations at Sea  

Sidelight 8: Admiral John Hoskins: The Man with a Wooden Leg and an Iron Will  

Chapter 8 – Leatherneck Bards: Marines Embrace Unusual Duty Aboard U.S. Navy Ships  

Sidelight 9: Women in the Navy  

Chapter 9 – Midwatch Mischief: Navigating Unusual Rhymes in Deck Log Poetry  

Sidelight 10: The Lone Haiku: Yasuto Tana  

Chapter 10 – Midwatch Deck Log Poetry Aboard US Submarines: The Early Cold  War Years  

Sidelight 11: The Long and Short of it  

Chapter 11 – Graphic Embellishments: How Design Added Beauty to Deck Log Poems  

Sidelight 12: From Navy Steel to Kinetic Sculpture: James L. Seawright, Jr.  

Chapter 12 – Bards of Viet Nam  

Sidelight 13: A Navy Man for Life: Wayne Philo Hughes, Jr (276) 

Chapter 13 – Postscripts  

Sidelight 14: This, That, and De Otter: Playing with Language on New Year’s Eve  

Epilogue 

Source Notes 

Appendix A – Oh, the Nights are Calm and the Breeze a Balm. . . Excellent Poems From the Midwatch: A Sampler