Before Reading
The Fish
Poem by Elizabeth Bishop
Christmas Sparrow
Poem by Billy Collins
The Sloth
Poem by Theodore Roethke
What ANIMAL reminds
you of yourself?
RL 4 Determine the connotative
meanings of words and phrases;
analyze the cumulative impact
of specific word choices on
meaning. RL 5 Analyze an
author’s choices concerning how
to structure a text. L 4b Identify
and correctly use patterns of word
changes that indicate different
meanings or parts of speech.
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Think about your pets or other animals you’ve seen at the zoo or
on TV nature shows. Do animals ever behave in a way that seems
almost human? Have you ever thought you knew what they were
feeling? In the poems that follow, you will meet three animals with
distinctive “human” qualities.
DISCUSS Choose one animal you identify with the most. Explain to
a partner why you relate to it and what characteristics you share
with it.
Meet the Authors
Elizabeth Bishop
poetic form: free verse
Most modern poems are written in free verse, a poetic form
with no regular pattern of rhyme or rhythm. A free verse poem
can be structured as one long, unbroken stanza, as in “The
Fish,” or with many stanzas of varying length, as in “Christmas
Sparrow.” The lines in free verse poems may also vary in
length. Without a strict meter, the rhythm of free verse poetry
often seems more like everyday speech. As you read, notice
how the line length, sounds of words, and punctuation create
a rhythm in each poem.
text analysis: imagery
Sometimes a poem can seem like a portrait. Sensory language,
or words and phrases that appeal to the reader’s senses, can
help create imagery—visual portraits that reinforce ideas
about the subject described. For example, in “The Fish,” Bishop
appeals to the senses of sight and touch when she describes
the fish’s skin. Lines like these help depict a fragile old fish.
hung in strips / like ancient wallpaper
shapes like full-blown roses / stained and lost through age
As you read the poems, record strong, evocative imagery on a
chart like the one shown. Identify
• the sense the word or phrase appeals to
• the associations the imagery conjures up
1911–1979
Soulful Poet
The poetry of Elizabeth Bishop is marked
by its exact and tranquil descriptions of the
physical world. Hidden beneath her poems’
air of serenity and simplicity,
however, are underlying themes
of great depth. When writing
about loss and pain, the struggle
to belong, and other themes,
Bishop worked hard to ensure
that “the spiritual [was] felt.”
Billy Collins
born 1941
Poet for the People
Billy Collins remembers publishing a poem
in his high school newspaper that was later
confiscated. Rising to national and popular
prominence years later, Collins became
U.S. Poet Laureate (2001–2003) and
launched the “Poetry 180” program,
which aimed to get more high
school students to read well-written,
understandable poetry each day
during the 180-day school year.
• the idea that is being reinforced
Theodore Roethke
Poem Title:
Imagery
Sense(s)
Associations
Idea Reinforced
reading strategy: visualize
Listen carefully as y0ur teacher reads aloud the poems.
Visualize the animals, settings, and events. Then read along
with your teacher as he or she reads the poems a second
time in a shared reading. Use your imagination and the word
clues to “see” what the animals might look like. Then, read
the poems again with a partner. Discuss how the shared
and repeated readings helped you visualize the animals and
understand the poems.
1908–1963
Passion for Nature
“When I get alone under an open sky,” wrote
Theodore Roethke, “where man isn’t too
evident—then I’m tremendously
exalted. . . .” A passion for
nature pervades Roethke’s
poetry. His poems also explore
love, mortality, and the
quest for spiritual
wholeness.
Authors Online
Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
Go to thinkcentral.com. KEYWORD: HML10-795
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The Fish
Elizabeth Bishop
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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 a
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,
unit 7: the language of poetry
a
FREE VERSE
Notice the different
lengths of the lines in this
poem. How do the short
lines affect the poem’s
rhythm?
RL 4
Language Coach
Connotations The
images and feelings
connected to a word
are its connotations.
In line 18, infested
literally means overrun
or permeated. What
connotations do you
associate with infested?
Would you want to eat
an infested fish?
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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. b
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. c
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.
b
VISUALIZE
Reread lines 34–44. What
aspects of the fish’s
character can you “see” in
this description of its eyes?
c
IMAGERY
What senses does this
description of the fish’s
face appeal to? What
associations form in your
mind about the fish?
the fish
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h
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Sparrow
BILLY COLLINS
The first thing I heard this morning
was a rapid flapping sound, soft, insistent—
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wings against glass as it turned out
downstairs when I saw the small bird
rioting in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of glass into the spacious light.
d
Then a noise in the throat of the cat
who was hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap of a basement door,
and later released from the soft grip of teeth.
d
IMAGERY
What images describe the
bird in lines 1–7? What
senses do these images
appeal to?
L 4b
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On a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a shirt and got it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.
But outside, when I uncupped my hands,
it burst into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.
unit 7: the language of poetry
Language Coach
Suffixes The word
pulsation (line 14) is
formed by adding the
suffix -ion, meaning “the
action of” to the base
word pulsate, meaning “to
throb or beat.” Restate
the definition of pulsation
in your own words. Can
you think of other words
formed from a base word
and the suffix -ion?
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For the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms as I wondered about
the hours it must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight e
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.
e
VISUALIZE
What details help you
imagine how the bird
looks and feels as it hides
in the Christmas tree?
christmas sparrow
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The
o
Sloth
Theodore Roethke
In moving-slow he has no Peer.1
You ask him something in his Ear,
He thinks about it for a Year;
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And, then, before he says a Word
There, upside down (unlike a Bird),
He will assume that you have Heard—
f
Reread line 9. What does
this image suggest about
the sloth?
A most Ex-as-per-at-ing Lug.
But should you call his manner Smug,
He’ll sigh and give his Branch a Hug; f
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Then off again to Sleep he goes,
Still swaying gently by his Toes,
And you just know he knows he knows.
1. peer: equal.
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unit 7: the language of poetry
IMAGERY
RL 10
g
g
ELEMENTS OF POETRY
Poets often use
punctuation to help
illustrate their thoughts.
In “The Sloth,” Roethke
uses a dash at the
end of one line and
hyphens in the middle
of words to help bring
to life the subject of
his poem. Reread lines
6–7. What effect does
this punctuation have
on the way you read and
interpret the poem?
After Reading
Comprehension
1. Recall How does the fish in Bishop’s poem react when it is caught?
2. Recall How did the bird in Collins’s poem get trapped inside the house?
3. Summarize What is the sloth’s response when asked a question?
RL 4 Determine the figurative
meanings of words and phrases;
analyze the cumulative impact
of specific word choices on
meaning. RL 5 Analyze an
author’s choices concerning how
to structure a text.
Text Analysis
4. Visualize Describe in detail the mental picture you form of each animal in the
poems.
5. Analyze Imagery Review the examples of imagery that you recorded in your
chart. Identify some images that appeal to your sense of sight and others that
appeal to your sense of touch. What is the most striking image in each poem?
Why?
6. Analyze Free Verse How is the experience of reading Bishop’s and Collins’s
free verse poems different from that of reading Roethke’s more traditional
poem?
7. Interpret Themes How are the three animals in these poems like people?
What does each poem suggest about the relationship between human beings
and animals?
8. Compare and Contrast Texts Compare and contrast “The Fish” and
“Christmas Sparrow.” In a chart like the one shown, consider the similarities
and differences in subject, mood, and theme.
“The Fish”
“Christmas Sparrow”
Similarities
Differences
Subject
Mood
Theme
Text Criticism
9. Critical Interpretations According to Billy Collins, the best poems begin in
clarity and end in mystery. Would you say that this is true for each of the
three poems in this lesson? Why or why not?
What ANIMAL reminds you of yourself?
What can animals teach us about being human?
the fish / christmas sparrow / the sloth
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