Elizabeth Bishop

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I caught a tremendous fish

This is significant, as the fish would not have been easy to haul out of the water

He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.

Perhaps the fish has given up, this piques Bishop’s interests

Battered and venerable and homely.

Respect is warranted from its appearance, and her curiousty grows

infested with tiny white sea-lice

Again she examines the fish and provides us with a quite detailed but slightly grotesque image

I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers

The internal description seems nicer than the external

grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,

She notices the fish has been caught on five previous occasions, he has obviously escaped each time so therefore he is a survivor

everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

She see herself in the fish - both have been through a lot and survived, she has respect, understanding, and admiration for it, ultimately this is why she decides to let the fish go

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Oh, but it is dirty!

All that she can see initially is the filth of the place

oil-soaked, oil-permeated

It seems as though it will never be clean

Do they live in the station?

She is fascinated that anybody could live in a place this filthy

Some comic books provide the only note of colour

These show things in the station are cared for

Why, oh why, the doily?

She cannot wrap her head around why there are nice things in this seemingly frenzied, dirty, place

Somebody loves us all.

She comes to the realisation that despite first appearance ‘somebody’ cares, in the literal case of the filling station this might be a maternal figure

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The brown enormous odor he lived by was too close … for him to judge.

He is in no position to judge the filth the animals live in as he’s just as bad

even to the sow that always ate her young -
till, sickeneing, he leaned to scratch her head

Despite this disturbing image, he is friendly to the animals as they are his only companion

(He hid the pints behind a two-by-four)

He is clearly ashamed of his addiciton

safe and companionable as in the Ark.

Religious reference. The animals in Noah’s ark went in twos

His shuddering insights, beyond his control

At night he cannot avoid looking inward and judging himself

But it took him a long time
finally to make his mind up to go home.

There is a sense of hope/redemption in this final line, however we should note that it will not be easily achieved. It takes the prodigal a long time to even fully acknowledge that going ‘home’ / getting help is the right thing to do

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September rain falls on the house.

Pathetic fallacy sets the tone of the poem

laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She is attempting to distract herself

She thinks that her equinoctial tears …
were both foretold by the alamanc

It seems as though her tears were always going to come. The almanac has an almost sinister quality as it appears as though it predicted this sadness

the teakettle’s small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove

The child has noticed the sadness despite the grandmother’s best efforts

Bird-like, the almanac hovers half open above the child

The child feels as though the almanac has the power to bring more sadness to her life. Perhaps the almanac is preparing for this, it’s hovering shows its readiness to pounce

Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears

The child is very aware of the sadness that consumes the scene despite the grandmother’s best efforts.

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my mother laid out Arthur
beneath the chromographs

Sets the scene of the poem and shows the importance (chromographs of royal family)

Below them on the table
stood a stuffed loon

The child has become fascinated by this. It has a central place in the parlour and captures her attention

He kept his own counsel
on his white, frozen lake

She imagines the loon silently observing the family and judging them

His eyes were red glass

Contrasts the white, frozen lake and shows the difference between the colourful and colourless

Arthur’s coffin was
a little frosted cake

A coffin view a child-like lens shows how young Bishop was at the time

He was all white, like a doll
that hadn’t been painted yet

Shows her belief that perhaps Arthur is now lost potential, as he died so young

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There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea

Negative tone shows that she is exhausted and overwhelmed

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

Bishop shows regret of travelling

Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?

Despite our efforts we cannot let our reality go

But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road

The use of surely implies doubt, but nevertheless she is beginning to show appreciation

Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
… on what connection can exist for centuries

She decides that the travel she has undertook is infact worthwhile

‘Is it lack of imaination that makes us come to imagined places, not just stay at home?’

Bishop poses a question of wondering why people choose to travel to begin with