Poem The Fish

The Beauty of the Catch In the poem “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop is a tale that uses imagery and words to paint a picture of the story it tells. With each line an image is shown in everyone’s mind and the readers are transported to that place, they imagine each detail down to the smallest atom. This is a poem that uses words to place images in the reader’s head to immerse them into the story. It uses words that describe images that make the readers use their mind to see these vivid images. In this poem its uses both the words and images to lure the readers to it, this is a great example of how these two elements can work together. The poem “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop is a story that tells a real and vivid tale, with its use of imagery and words.

One of many ways that she uses vivid imagery to picture what this fish looked like is by telling the readers details about the it, as she states “ his brown skin hung in strips / like ancient wallpaper, / and its pattern of darker brown / was like wallpaper: / shapes like full-blown roses / stained and lost through age” (Lines 10-15). She placed these details for the readers to immerse themselves into the story in a deeper level; she wanted the readers to imagine he/she catching that exact fish on a fishing trip. She also wants the readers to see what she sees at that moment, every scale, every set of teethes, and eyes. As Christine R Catron states in her work analysis of the poem, “The narrator’s empathy with the fish arises from her concentrated examination of him” (Catron). Bishop went beyond anyone else and truly showed the readers that just simple details can go a far way. It is through this way that the readers can vividly see and describe what is seen and felt at that moment of the