The poem
I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn't fight. He hadn't fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age. He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. While his gills were breathing in the terrible oxygen --the frightening gills, fresh and crisp with blood, that can cut so badly-- I thought of the coarse white flesh packed in like feathers, the big bones and the little bones, the dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pink swim-bladder like a big peony. I looked into his eyes which were far larger than mine but shallower, and yellowed, the irises backed and packed with tarnished tinfoil seen through the lenses of old scratched isinglass. They shifted a little, but not to return my stare. --It was more like the tipping of an object toward the light. I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw, and then I saw that from his lower lip --if you could call it a lip grim, wet, and weaponlike, hung five old pieces of fish-line, or four and a wire leader with the swivel still attached, with all their five big hooks grown firmly in his mouth. A green line, frayed at the end where he broke it, two heavier lines, and a fine black thread still crimped from the strain and snap when it broke and he got away. Like medals with their ribbons frayed and wavering, a five-haired beard of wisdom trailing from his aching jaw. I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat, from the pool of bilge where oil had spread a rainbow around the rusted engine to the bailer rusted orange, the sun-cracked thwarts, the oarlocks on their strings, the gunnels--until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.
Bishop’s attention to detail and ability to provide a narrative for the creature’s past are things to notice here. In the first 20 or so lines, she clearly uses physical aspects of the fish to suggest a deeper past, which makes the fish something more important than the silly thing it actually is. In a letter to Marianne Moore, Bishop wrote: The other day I caught a parrot fish, almost by accident. They are…
Read the whole commentBishop’s attention to detail and ability to provide a narrative for the creature’s past are things to notice here. In the first 20 or so lines, she clearly uses physical aspects of the fish to suggest a deeper past, which makes the fish something more important than the silly thing it actually is. In a letter to Marianne Moore, Bishop wrote:
The other day I caught a parrot fish, almost by accident. They are ravishing fish – all iridescent, with a silver edge to each scale, and a real bill-like mouth just like turquoise; the eye is very big and wild, and the eyeball is turquoise too – they are very humorous-looking fish. A man on the dock immediately scraped off three scales, then threw him back; he was sure it wouldn’t hurt him. I’m enclosing one [scale], if I can find it. …
This poem was very beautiful. The fish was an old warrier--had fought many battles and was too tired to fight another. Whose victory was this--the man, whose compassion told hold, or, the mighty fish--who won another battle?
Oh don't be so sure ED, how can you call the fish "a silly thing"? Especially a person who does fishing and is at least a bit sensitive should realise fish is a living creature. It is alive and what you do is taking life from it, simply killing. It is not sport, it's killing. And Elizabeth admitts that. She shows cruelty of fishing, the fish has "aching lips" (or mouth, I don't remember), it is hurt. And it's been made by humans feel pain several times. The hooks became partd of the fish's body. It seems the poet saw disgracefulness of treating it in such a way, and felt sorry for it, let it free. It is not catching a fish we should be proud of, but actually releasing it.
I think it's easy to simply dismiss this work of art as a mere stupid poem, with little or no meaning...but that would be terribly ignorant of us. This moment of epiphany truley signifies Bishop's ability to cherish life, no matter how insignificant it may seem, and doesn't it really hold truth?We are presented with such a beutifully illustrated universal issue. Im sitting on my own in my room bed ridden, sick for…
Read the whole commentI think it's easy to simply dismiss this work of art as a mere stupid poem, with little or no meaning...but that would be terribly ignorant of us. This moment of epiphany truley signifies Bishop's ability to cherish life, no matter how insignificant it may seem, and doesn't it really hold truth?We are presented with such a beutifully illustrated universal issue. Im sitting on my own in my room bed ridden, sick for the past 3 days, and nobody has even rang me to see how I'm doing...Im hurt,clearly... and feel unloved and disregarded, but it would really make my day if someone thought of me, I mean i have feelings too just like any of us....there's not such a famous saying, that says "everybody wipes their arses" who's with me?! I certainly do...and if you dont, then your a minger. I mean I hold all these feelings, Im utterly saturated with them, yet, my whole class havn't even felt the absence of my presence...and who's to say that fish isnt just as important as any other eegit? A living thing is a living thing at the end of the day. I said it once and i'll say it again...you'll probly think Im a flipin oddball 4 sayin it again, but i dont care cuz u dont know me..."everybody wipes their arses" there is certainly a lesson to be learnt in this poem, like it or not
OH MY GOSH I JUST LOVE THIS POEM ;)
You know I first read this poem about 30 years ago in year 8 or 9. I think something woke up in me when I did. It is the only poem I remember affecting me & I've looked for it a few times since. Here it is again! I love her honesty & empathy; her description & her.. I don't quite know what it is... I'm teaching an English class for a sick teacher... I'll see how we go with this one.
This is an interesting poem about a fish and fishing though the deeper meaning is slightly disturbing. I think that the end of the poem is lacking a certain gansta element - I believe that the ending line should read "WHATS UP CRACKA!?!" to add personification to the characterization of the fish.
I don't think Elizabeth is as sympathetic for the fish as everyone thinks she is, or just Kate, but Bishop does say she felt a sense of victory fill the boat, as if taking pride in catching the fish. Also she describes the other hooks in the fish by calling them medals
what does the ending "until everything/was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!" mean?
my interpretation of the "rainbow Rainbow rainbow" bit is that she is referring to the oil which has spilled (on the boat deck i think) and the sunlight is reflecting on the oil, making it look like rainbows, you know how it does. i also think that the reason she let the fish go was because,while looking in his eyes, they had a sort of moment. for one split second she saw herself in the fish. he was a "warrior" and had clearly beaten tough times (being caught 5 times but escaped) bishop too has experienced traumatic times but she always came out on top.she was a fighter and recognised this similar quality in the fish, and let him go
The line including the phrase "rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!" is an allusion to the romantic style of writing. By switching from a conventional style of writing to a single line of the passionate romantic style, the effect is an over the top expression of joy
the rainbow rainbow rainbow is an allusion to the Bibe, you know, Noah's Ark, [another boat] they were shown mercy and so was the fish who fought all his life.
love it
i think it's awesome,even though i don't like fish.