Elizabeth Bishop, "At the Fishouses": How Much Is Too Much?

 That's enough hot dogs for one day. Go sit down and read.  Because I said so.

At the Fishhouses by Elizabeth Bishop : The Poetry Foundation [poem]
 

What is Bishop's purpose in "At the Fishouses"?  Are there any words, lines, passages that aren't carrying their weight in conveying that purpose? It's not a short poem and doesn't have much white space. Does it deserve all its words? I'm not yet sure where I stand on this.

What else do you like or dislike in the poem? Or about the poem?

At the Fishhouses by Elizabeth Bishop : The Poetry Foundation [poem]

Bishop's "One Art," Day Two

Okay, okay, here's the whole poem.
One Art- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More 

I wonder if the tone of banter in the first four or five stanzas serves to dramatize, by contrast, the more momentous losses late in the poem. Or does Bishop foil herself, leading us to take "losing you" less seriously than we might have because we've been led to respond to everything in casual, chatty terms?

Also, are the final line's parenthesis, italics, and curious logic effective, especially when "Write it" is such an abrupt, forceful imperative (compared to the softer, early imperatives)? And all this causes the repetition of "like"? Is that an emotional stutter in "like . . . like," or is it simply awkwardness? Can we paraphrase the line in a way that captures both its thought and its feeling?

Of course, some writers hate teachers' requesting students to paraphrase. If the lines could be paraphrased, they reason, why should poets bother putting them into verse in the first place, with all that metaphor and rhythm and tone business to attend to?  The whole reason for writing poetry is the inadequacy of paraphrase and other attempts at discursive commentary.


I'm in the wishy-washy middle on both of my questions. I usually think Bishop has been ingeniously powerful with the turn in the final stanza, and the command in the last line is at least a little scary. But sometimes the line itself and the poem's whole tonal change from coffee chat to an exectioner's directive (Write it; as in, "Kill him!). It can feel like a rhetorical trick, a gratituitous extreme, as much as an earned utterance and emotion.

As for paraphrase, I'm one of the sociopathic dullards who's asked students to do it--yes, suborned the young to Commit paraphrase.

On the other hand, I do agree with those poets who say one of the main purposes of poetry is to (try to) express the inexpressible, thus rendering the act of paraphrasing (turning poetry into prose) a felony of the intellect and soul.

On the third hand, I think my job is to guide students (persuade, badger, trick them) toward liking poetry and understanding it, on their own terms, in which case the argument against paraphrase can sound like highfalutin, "aren't I special," mystical frippery and fraud, which alienates a lot of students. They'll get comfortable with exotic frippery and foppery as they grow old; they'll even practice it plenty. But let's not push them there any faster than necessary. 

Of course, the real argument is that students who really, really, really get poetry already know, or suspect, or will know soon, that what makes any art special is beyond paraphrase. And they'll probably intuit that you can't kill art with paraphrase even if you try. It's bigger and fuzzier than that.




One Art- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More

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ELIZABETH BISHOP, "ONE ART," THE VILLANELLE

Does he looks as if he's lost something?

It’s been a while since I’ve ranted about a poem’s obligation to offer gifts along its way to completeness. So, for a couple of days, I’m going to offer only chunks of Elizabeth Bishop’s deservedly famous and masterful villanelle, “One Art,” in the hope of demonstrating that this is a poet who earned her time on earth—not just with one poem, but with individual lines and stanzas. On the third day or fourth day, I’ll provide a link to the whole poem (as if you can’t find it on your own—but try to restrain yourself).

First, let’s remember just how difficult the villanelle is as a form. It’s a French invention, comprising five three-line stanzas (tercets) and a concluding quatrain.  In those 19 lines, there are only two rhyming sounds, which occur in a pattern of aba five times, followed by abaa in the quatrain.  Mind you, that’s not just a first and third line rhyming in each tercet, but the same a and the same b sounds throughout.

As if that’s not enough, Line 1 is repeated (verbatim or nearly so) in lines 6, 12, and 18, while Line 3 is repeated in lines 9, 15, and 19. 

By comparison, the Shakespearean sonnet, a rigid form in its own right, permits seven—SEVEN!—rhyming sounds: abab cdcd efef gg.   Viewed beside a villanelle, it’s a downright flabby hippie of self-indulgence and ought to be ashamed of its lack of discipline. 

Redwing: Lost in the Branches?

And one more thing! Speaking of people who might be mistaken for self-indulgent hippies, Dylan Thomas in the famous “Do Not Go Gentle” and Theodore Roethke in “The Waking” go still further and impose a rather chanting iambic pentameter upon their admirable villanelles. Bishop's iambics in “One Art,” are less emphatic and thus might seem more natural, conversational. The poem contains more variations upon the iambs, and most of its a-rhymes are feminine (that is, their final syllable is unstressed—the “er” in “master” and “disaster,” for example).

The inner nuns, the ascetic souls in these three poets are alive and well, bent on self-flagellation and various other forms of abuse (even as they perform good works for the rest of us hooligans).

So here is Bishop’s opening stanza in “One Art,” in which she commands my attention, astonishment, and admiration. After completing the first tercet, or just the first line, the poem is hers to . . . lose (no pun intended).

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Bishop’s labeling of losing as an art is well on its way to being a poem in itself. Also, the almost good-natured, self-effacing, chatty tone—the tone that personifies and accuses “things” of having the “intent/to be lost”—almost holds its own against the dark weight of “losing,” “lost,” “loss” and “disaster.” Almost . . . . 

We hear her irony, her almost light-hearted invitation to us, along with the (perhaps) blithe accusation of herself. However, we also hear the poem's potential for turning grave any minute, if it hasn’t already.

Note also the enjambment (unpunctuated running on) between lines 2 and 3; things are filled with "the intent" . . .  and we pause slightly for the end of a line.

Wait! What intent? We have to go on to Line 3 to be answered, to hear the (suddenly?) ominous "to be lost." It's little-big situations (tricks?) like this that push me to insist that good poems are as suspenseful as mystery novels when we take the correct, patient approach.

So, what's coming in the poem, do you think?  Next post, the second tercet, maybe more if I'm convinced you're hungry by then.

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Elizabeth Bishop, "The Fish"

The video at the bottom is under three minutes and might make you smile (or wince).

In Bishop's poem, I like the overall pattern and direction, the movement toward the conclusion, but the whole seems somewhat overpacked with details. Could maybe 30% of these words be cut with no loss of power in the last line? Or, to appreciate the fish, do we need to be made aware of so many component parts?

The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UIpOUgQt-g&feature=related








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