Writer an Essay on the Poem Blessing Poem by James Wright - 1927-1980

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Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish
The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop is a one-stanza, free verse poem that reveals the speaker’s fishing experience. The narrator begins by declaring an achievement of catching a tremendous fish. She hung the fish halfway out of water. The poetic devices enable the narrator to communicate effectively and pass the right message to her audience. In the beginning, Bishop uses a tone that portrays happiness in catching a fish. However, the joy fades away as she continues to study the fish. Imagery, diction, and figurative language makes the poem to be vivid in the reader’s mind. Bishop’s choice of words makes the poem easy to understand. For instance, “tarnished tinfoil” is used to describe the eyes of the fish. By using this phrase, the reader knows that the fish that Bishop caught is old. Bishop uses poetic techniques of imagery, tone, diction, and figurative language to reveal the reason why she freed her catch.
Bishop’s poem starts with a jubilant tone, which is marked by “I caught a tremendous fish” (Bishop Line 1). In reality, not every time that a fisherperson goes out and has a big catch. However, something is not right with the fish since it does not fight back for its life. At this point, the tone of the speaker changes to that of detachment and coldness. The narrator becomes interested in studying the fish, which makes her realize the challenges that this creature has undergone to survive in its old age. She becomes emotional and perceives it as a victor. Bishop uses diction to describe the fish and her experience with it. Some of the carefully selected words and phrases in the poem are “grunting weight,” “terrible oxygen,” “wallpaper,” and “five-haired beard.” For example, by using the phrase “grunting weight,” the reader can vividly see how the fisherperson was struggling to hold the tremendous fish halfway out of water. “A five-haired beard of wisdom” means that the fish was old enough to have mastered various techniques of surviving in an environment where human predators are regular visitors (Bishop Line 63). Overall, Bishop uses words that make the reader see and understand her encounter with the old fish.
Imagery runs throughout the poem. For instance, the narrator says, “with my hook fast in the corner of his mouth” (Bishop Line 4). At this juncture, one can see how the speaker suspended the fish halfway out of the water, which shows some of the sufferings the fish had to undergo in its old life. But the unusual thing is that the fish does not...