I had just finished reading "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop. If there's one thing very notable and unique about this poem it is that it is very descriptive and detailed. Bishop uses imagery even on the slightest traits of the fish. For example, when she begins to describe his eyes in line 34 ("I looked into his eye...") it takes her 9 lines just to describe the fishes eyes. I understand that she is using a deep sense of imagery to fully accentuate the prowess of the atmosphere but personally I find it to drag out way too much.
Her overabundance of imagery makes me lose interest the more frequent it appears. This poems size could have been cut in half had she not used so much unnecessary imagery. It would have made the poem more straight forward, hence preventing a decline in interest. Also, the poem would be far less confusing.
Overall, I like the use of imagery a lot, i just feel that too much of something is not a good thing. Bishop has good intentions, but personally her use of imagery just made me lose interest.
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I do agree with you on the fact that there was lots of imagery,but it seems by this she really wants the reader to capture her epiphany of the beauty that surrounds us. I also agree about the poems length. i found myself as well trying to focus back on the poem around half way through. I like how poem reaches in your mind for a picture it really puts the imagination is overdrive!
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, it is detailed, but the complexity of her experience--the conflicting feelings about her use (not to say "exploitation") of the fish--and the complexity of the meditation on that liminal moment--the fish suspended between two worlds--the working out of all that necessitates the development as we have it. You'll see a lot of this in poetry; unfortunately, most good poetry, unlike, say, informational writing, is roundabout--not straight forward
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed, very intense with imagery and descriptive words, yet the reading was more like telling a story, so descriptive that one can imagine them-self "They shifted a little, but not to return my stare, 40",as if hopeless. Maybe me though it was his time, maybe he had nothing more to live for, or maybe all of this "kind" vanished.
ReplyDeleteMy computer just crashed and I lost the lengthy post that I was writing. In brief, our poetry reading circle supports discussion and informs reading in depth; also, a poem can always be read as though it were presented to a workshop audience for critique: does it work? why or why not? how would you suggest revising it? Michael seems to suggest that the poet cut the poem by half its length. Which images would you cut? And why?
ReplyDeleteWith all that's being said here, you all may also want to take a look at Bishop's "At the Fishouses," in Poets.org (along with Katie Ford's essay, "Visibility is Poor": Elizabeth Bishop's Obsessive Imagery and Mystical Unsaying," which you can link to from the same page): the imagery here will seem even more errant than in "The Fish"--is it? or, if it is, why is it?
ReplyDeleteThe samething happened to me. Halfway through the poem i was sort of side tracked and lost a bit of interest in the poem because it was very lenghty and started to go too much into descriptive details. For a poet to be very descriptive in their poems is not bad at all. Its just when it reaches to the point when the reader is no long following or not getting anymore imagination from it, then i would say its sort of a bad thing. But the poet shows a great deal of observation and gives it back to us in great detail as if we were to be the ones in her place. I just couldnt picture much after the very tiny details.
ReplyDeleteRight, the imagery and description of the fish sometimes droned on and on. And like everyone said, it is very detailed and insightful. The close sense of detail gives us readers a better understanding of the fish, how it looks, act's, feels etc. but most importantly how the speaker sees the fish and how he/she feels about it. But then again such an amount of detail sometimes can be too much, my english teacher in 7th grade once told me about a book that ran over five hundred pages (i think, if not MORE!), and it all took place in one day! The entire book tells the tale of one mans entire day...it scared me then, but i wouldn't mind giving it a go now.
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