Exploding Whale poetry

Well, it certainly didn’t take long for the Exploding Whale to make an appearance on Register-Guard columnist Bob Welch‘s blog! I mean, seriously, what do you think he expected when, in honor of Oregon’s 149th birthday (which was on Valentine’s Day, February 14), Welch asked his readers to submit limerickshonoring the state’s places and geographic features? 

Well, I for one felt obligated to submit something related to the Exploding Whale. And apparently, I was not alone. In addition to my three entries, four other readers were moved to poetry by our beloved cetacean detonation. Please, feel free to read through all 286 submissions. Or, at the end of this entry, you can read just the limericks that referenced the Exploding Whale. 

From the 286 submissions, Bob will pick the top three and award them gift certificates to a local book store. In addition, the best limericks will be published in his February 21st column. (Update:See this posting for the surprising results!)

From “All 286 Oregon Limerick entries,” as posted on Bob Welch’s blog:

A whale made an unscheduled stop
In it’s tracks on the beach it did drop
So they blew it sky high
And the man yelled, Oh My!
On his car it did land right on top
— Ross Daniels, Eugene

As something of a seaside lover
The Oregon Coast you should discover
But whilst climbing a dune
If you hear a ka-boom
Watchout for flying blubber!
— Randy Haines, Eugene

An error of unprecedented scale
That resulted in blubber hail
Made Florence, our coast town
A place of freakish reknown
With the tale of the exploding whale
— Gene Wong

Washed up on a beach in Florence,
It’s stench made it an abhorrence
Until the Highway Division
Made an explosive decision
And dead whale rained down in torrents
— Steve Hackstadt, Eugene

Florence is home to a tale surreal
In which a dead whale stunk a great deal
Boom! went the dynamite
One chunk took quite a flight
And crushed Walter’s new Oldsmobile.
— Steve Hackstadt, Eugene

In Florence a very strange thing occurred
A smelly dead whale was blown up — absurd!
The solution, so silly
(No, it wasn’t Free Willy)
Sent whale blubber flying skyward
— Steve Hackstadt, Eugene

The most infamous beach in all the north west
was christened with blubber at ODOT’s request
The smell was so rank
That everyone stank
who had gone down to watch the whale blow fest.
— Linda Vaccaro, Florence