All appetite, the wolf eel, not an eel at all, 
but a fish that sometimes reaches eight feet, 
looks vicious, but like every living creature, 
he’s complex. His fearsome jaws convince us 
he’s malicious, as likely to bite off 
a diver’s nose as look at him, his body 
muscular as a wave. But we’d be wrong 
to think that—those jaws are made for 
breaking through the tough exterior 
of crabs and urchins to reach the sweet 
interior we too savor. He’s curious, 
does not fear our nets or hooks. 
That’s his mistake. 

We’re fascinated by wolf eels’ nightmare faces, 
have dreamed up deadly aliens made in their image. 
But the eel itself is almost tame, can be hand fed, 
rather like a dog. The most famous portrait 
of this creature tells more about us than it does 
the eel. You can almost smell its fetid breath, 
shreds of flesh caught between the front teeth, 
each the length and width of a man’s fingers, 
imagine how it felt to hold that body, as it 
struggled to escape the burning air. 
The man seems to be calculating how many 
meals this eel will make, how he can parcel out 
the steaks and sell them to a shore-side chef. 
His hands give him advantages the eel lacks, 
at least on this side of the waves. 

Commercial fisherman Nate Ethan Iszak with Wolf eel *

On 9 March 2021, Iszak and his Oregon-based fishing crew
reeled in the eel off the coast of Alaska near Akutan Island.

* Publisher’s Notes:

Links below were re-accessed on 9 April 2023:

1. The image above was posted to the Alaska Daily photography page on Facebook, with the caption “Wolf eels are awesome but scary creatures!” (18 April 2021):
https://www.facebook.com/102667751446151/photos/a.121544109558515/284687396577518/?paipv=0&eav=AfaUh4QhVnx0hqOObpskP53fD9D6uE-QGWNYGbLv4gLZQxCLyYgA761kxQUcVyszG6E

Six weeks earlier, three related photographs were posted to Nate Ethan Iszak’s Facebook page, with an umbrella caption of “Wolf eel” (9 March 2021):
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0ep3yhwBVgK917EpyErB4c8ySDMp3obTDmmYfaVxrLpVJTykW5Ci2NpF8FMBD3Kuql&id=100002447792399

(A few online sources credit Iszak both as the photographer of the Alaska Daily image and as the fisherman holding the eel, but it seems more likely that one of his crew members was behind the camera. Iszak has not responded to Ms. Nester’s attempts to contact him, nor to mine.)


2. To see a more gentle interspecies encounter, watch how “Grandpa” the Wolf eel is greeted by Theo, his diver friend of 18 years, as filmed by underwater cinematographer John Roney:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd89CFqALmM/

Details about “Grandpa” may be found in this Newsweek article by Jack Beresford, “Diver Gives ‘Chin Scratches’ to Friendly 8-Foot Wolf Eel in Stunning Video” (24 June 2022):
https://www.newsweek.com/diver-gives-chin-scratches-friendly-8-foot-wolf-eel-video-1718814

Robbi Nester

lives and writes in Southern California, where she is a retired college educator and an elected member of the Academy of American Poets. She curates two poetry reading series and is the author of four published books of poetry, including an ekphrastic chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012), and three collections: Narrow Bridge (Main Street Rag, 2019), Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017), and A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014). She has four more manuscripts awaiting publication.

Her poems, reviews, essays, and articles have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including among others: Artemis; Book of Matches; Cultural Daily; Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic (Kent State University Press, 2022); SMEOP (Hot) (Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, forthcoming); Live Encounters; MacQueen’s Quinterly; Mindfull; Naugatuck River Review; Rhino; One Art; The Journal of Radical Wonder; Tiferet; Valparaiso Poetry Journal; Verse-Virtual; and Zooanthology: About the Animals in Our Lives (Sweetycat Press, 2022).

Robbi has also edited three anthologies: The Liberal Media Made Me Do It! (Nine Toes, 2014); Over the Moon: Birds, Beasts, and Trees, which was published as a special issue of Poemeleon Journal; and The Plague Papers, recently published online at Poemeleon Journal.

Poet’s website: www.robbinester.net

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Dancing White Egret, ekphrastic poem by Robbi Nester after a photograph by Philippe Rouyer, in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 14, August 2022)

⚡ Three Poems by Robbi Nester in Verse-Virtual (January 2020)

⚡ Law of Attraction, ekphrastic poem after Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone, in Verse-Virtual (May 2019)

⚡ Night Tunnel, ekphrastic poem by Robbi Nester after a painting by Robert Rhodes, Philadelphia Night Train, in The Ekphrastic Review (21 April 2016)

⚡ The Locusts, ekphrastic poem after a collage of the same name by Mary Boxley Bullington, in The Ekphrastic Review (13 October 2015)