Comparing Poems 'The Fish' By Elizabeth Bishop And Marianne Moore

Mae Sebastian

Ms.Lessnick

Advance lit 9

1/28/16

Essay “The Fish”, the title of two different poems, one written by poet Elizabeth Bishop and the other by poet Marianne Moore. These poets composed poems that were able to portray and capture two different points of views by their distinct styles of writing. Although both poems are titled “The Fish”, they differ in structure, tone, and perspective used by the poet. They also have similarities but in all, they are two very unique and exceptional poems.

Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore used some of the same poetry techniques and structures but expressed in diverse ways. For example, they both use is enjambment, but Moore’s use was prominent. Moore had used indentation to show enjambment;

In Moore’s poems, the syllabic count is one, three, nine, six, and eight. One last example of differences is Moore’s poem has a rhyme scheme while Bishop was written in free verse. Moore’s rhyme scheme was, a, a,b,b,c and was repeated through the poem. Some of the rhyming words included; wade, jade, keeps, heaps, and the sun and spun. These are just some of the various ways these two poems are similar and different in their form and

These two poems varied in their tone and perspective which had an impact on how it was perceived. Bishop’s poem was literally about a fish while Moore’s poems sound more of a perspective of a fish. This difference is shown when Bishop had described what a fished looked like instead of describing a landscape where a fish might live. Elizabeth Bishop had described details of the fish; “ -the frightening gills,/ fresh and crisp with blood,/ can cut so badly-”. As for Marianne Moore, she had described an environment that may be seen by a fish; “the/turquoise sea/ of bodies. The water drives a wedge...”. Not only did Bishop described a fish but made the tone sound admiring while Moore’s tone was serious but was told in an observant way. We can tell the difference in tone by the way Bishop uses many opinionated adjectives to describe the fish. A few examples of adjectives she used are weaponlike, sullen, and frightening gills. Moore had described a landscape by stating what was in the environment and the landscape using different adjectives like turquoise, bespattered, and