Elizabeth Bishop
English – Poetry Revision Notes
Covering:
-
The Fish
The Bight
At the Fishhouses
The Prodigal
Questions of Travel
The Armadillo
Sestina
First Death in Nova Scotia
Filling Station
In the Waiting Room
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1 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
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2 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
3 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the
United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner
for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia
dedicated to her memory. She is considered one of the most important and distinguished American
poets of the 20th century.
The Fish
Text
The Fish
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
4 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
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.
5 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
Summary
In this poem, the narrator catches a large fish while fishing in a little rented boat. They study
the catch for a period of time, holding it up, ‘half out of water’, beside the boat. The fish is
old and gnarly-looking, with barnacles and algae growing on it; it also has five fishing hooks,
with the lines still partially attached hanging, from its jaw.
The narrator considers how tough this fish must be and how much he probably had to fight.
With this consideration, they begin to respect the fish. The poem climaxes when an oil
spillage in the boat makes a rainbow and the narrator, overcome with emotion a result of
their consideration of the fish, and the scene, releases the fish back into the water.
Annotation
The Fish
I caught a tremendous fish (adjective stresses the size of the 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, (power of three highlight’s the fish’s passivity; powerless
despite size)
battered and venerable (another power of three to describe the fish’s deteriorating
condition)
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper, (simile another image of deterioration with connotations of aging)
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age. (simile repeated and extended to develop idea of
aging/mortality)
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime, (imagery returns to the sea/water)
and infested (verb retains sense of mortality, introduces idea of disease)
with tiny white sea-lice, (associated with disease/illness)
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen (waterless air is harmful to the fish; implicit reference to oxygen’s
aging effect)
—the frightening gills,
6 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
fresh and crisp with blood, (oxymoron – unexpected contrast between ‘fresh’, ‘crisp’ and
‘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. (imagery of the body; though dying, the fish retains its greatness)
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine (sense that the narrator feels inferior to the fish)
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. (A reminder that the fish is dying; soon it will not see)
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw, (idea of narrator’s inferiority/admiration for the fish
developed)
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. (narrator realises that the fish has been a survivor for so long)
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. (reminder of the fish’s strength/size despite his current
weakness)
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering, (connotations of war here; the fish has fought to survive)
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat, (repetition of ‘stared’/‘victory’ metaphor concludes narrator’s
admiration)
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
7 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
around the rusted engine (hopeful metaphor; suggests old/wounded objects/people still
have life)
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels—until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! (the image of hope/life consumes the narrator)
And I let the fish go. (taken by their admiration for the fish/realisation that it has survived
so much, and the sense of hope fostered by the ‘rainbow’, the narrator releases the fish,
back into life itself; ending somewhat ambiguous, we don’t know where the fish will
survive being returned to the water, though it has done many times before. Sense of hope
suggests it will, and/or that the narrator has been restored in some way)
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8 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.
9 Elizabeth Bishop – Poetry English Revision notes.