It seems to me it would be naive to think that Elizabeth Bishop wasn’t aware of this ambiguity in writing the poem in the first place, she herself having always felt such ambivalence toward her own reputation as a “big fish.” Because Elizabeth Bishop didn’t want to be in the pond at all, in a sense, and shunned the publicity that would shine a romantic light on her as well, hanging her up on the edge of the boat.

There’s nothing romantic whatsoever about the fish in The Fish, I would say, so it should not be surprising either that the moment of intense vision at the end of the poem comes from a wholly other source. And that’s the key word, “wholly other”—the narrator turns away from the fish to the dirty water in the bilges, and in so doing has an insight into her own “wholly other” condition. Generic rainbows are what humanity sees at the end of the flood, and almost always have in them a glimpse of salvation. The rainbow in The Fish appears in the oily film on the water under the rusty engine at the bottom of the leaky boat, not as God’s gift to humanity way up in the sky. So the narrator glimpses her salvation by getting away from the horrible, obsessive, decomposing fish hanging on the outside in public, and moves back into the boat to be as she likes all alone. That’s why she lets it go, because the fish was such an outside intruder!

That’s a start on the fish that doesn’t want to be caught, but as this thread has slipped so far away, and I’m so out of the action at the moment, I won’t say more. If anybody is interested to take up my suggestion, or redirect it, I’d be delighted.

Christopher

I admire those posters most on Harriet who wrestle with the language, partly because I take some risks myself. But I’m always embarassed when I get up the next mornng and find I wrote something the night before like that above.

I’ve been away for a few days and it’s very late. I’ll try to pick this up again tomorrow–maybe I can do better with the fish that doesn’t want to be remembered or described. Because that’s the crux in The Fish, it seems to me, or at least it’s another way of looking at the description upon which the release at the end depends.

It’s very, very odd. It’s very, very uncomfortable.

Christopher

The whole problem on Harriet is people don’t want to believe what is actually said. They want to hear the lecture at Harvard, not what is said. They want their graduate school lecturers and mentors to have the answers, and the texts they pour over, and not what is actually said by their lovers once they’re deep inside the bed. Or by some old bird on Harriet.

Why are they so selective, why can’t they be alone and listen in a single bed?

Christopher

I found the old photo
of the fish and on the back
it says it was a tautog
and weighed 21 pounds 11 ounces.
I felt so badly about catching it,
I remember, it was such a rude intrusion
into private nature. I think
that’s why I can’t remember
what happened to it,
and I truly let it go.

So much is ‘missing’ from this ‘poem,’ however; the dark, the crowd, your son being there, the touching impatience/eagerness of your young son for the ’sport of patience.’

I could see ‘Creeley’ getting a lot of credit for this poem. Yet there’s no ‘art’ to it at all. It’s an intelligent man telling a touching story about catching a fish with his son.

Nicholson Baker says the ‘fish didn’t want to be described.’ No. How can that be? (thanks, Don, for that reference) Writers (and especially critics, who conspire with writers rather than understanding them) DO practice ‘pathetic fallacies’ a great deal–especially modern writers. We sell our authorial responsibilities and hoard our capital to be invested later by critics in bank account minds of gullible audiences.

When poetry was invented, people didn’t feel sorry for animals–they had no qualms about ‘intruding’ on nature; they kept and ate animals for survival; nature tried to kill Man every day. The sensibility/sensitivity Christopher expresses, Bishop expresses (and which I expressed in my ‘Fish’ poem) came about in Man gradually as an acceptable mainstream subject, and even today, most of the world eats fish and would never think to write or read a poem that evokes sympathy for fish.

This may be why modern poetry tends to be different and obscure, and why moderns will not accept the identity of the ‘acting’ author. Moderns have come full circle back to a primitivism which fears/accepts the dictates of Nature.

Thomas

And then it’s interesting to take that idea back and look at Annie Finch’s feminist reading, which I found so exciting in the middle of the night. The similarities are extraordinary.

I found the old photo of the fish and on the back it says it was a tautog and weighed 21 pounds 11 ounces. I felt so badly about catching it, I remember, it was such a rude intrusion into private nature. I think that’s why I can’t remember what happened to it, and I truly let it go.

Christopher

Nicholson Baker says that the thing about the fish in Bishop’s poem is that it doesn’t want to be described, it wants to be let go. Which, if so, justifies that non-epiphanic last line.

I think the most impressive, and the most like Elizabeth Bishop’s, was caught in my presence by my young son, Noah, and very much with my assistance. It was in the mid 80’s, and we took a drive to Block Island. My son was obsessed with fishing but not very good at it, and certainly not patient about waiting to get out of the car and get his hook in the water, anytime, anywhere. It was off an old wooden pier somewhere on the island, and just getting dark. I was hardly watching as I only helped him Noah there because he’d been creating such a fuss.

And almost immediately the rod was bent double, and I had to catch my son and the rod before they both went down into the water. It took us almost an hour to get the thing in, and the sun was just going down so it was almost dark at the end. Quite a crowd gathered around us, and a photo was taken–which I still have.

I never weighed it but I’d guess near 10-15 pounds pounds, and hideously encrusted and scarred just like The Fish. Somebody in the crowd said it must be a world record and we ought to get it tested.

We never did, and I don’t even remembeer what happened to it.

That’s also the story of my life.

Christopher

How many of you have actually caught a “tremendous fish”??

And – you may know that Bishop herself was unhappy with the poem, even threatening to redo it as a sonnet!