Personal Response to Elizabeth Bishop

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What I most admire about the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop is its combination of precise, imaginative description and thought-provoking insight. The poet closely observes and vividly describes the world around her. Her famous eye for detail and original imagery give her poetry a strong visual quality, drawing the reader into the world she describes. However, what makes her poetry particularly appealing is her desire to probe beneath the surface of things. We see how close observation leads the poet to inner reflection and moments of insight. These moments of insight, often dramatic and always interesting, help us all to better understand the world in which we live. Her poetry is rooted to personal experience, but has a genuine universal appeal. I enjoyed ‘The Fish’ for its unusual imagery, detailed description and uplifting epiphany. We are drawn into the poem by the first person narrative: ‘I caught a tremendous fish’. The poet’s respect for the fish is immediately conveyed: he is ‘battered and venerable and homely’. A domestic simile helps us to visualise this huge, ancient fish, while evoking a sense of comfortable familiarity: ‘his brown skin hung in strips / like ancient wallpaper’. Imaginative similes conjure up an image of the inside of the fish. His flesh is ‘packed in like feathers’, while his swim-bladder is ‘like a big peony.’ An interesting shift in this poem occurs when the poet looks into the eyes of the fish and begins to engage with him. Observation leads to reflection. The poet empathises with the fish when she observes the five hooks that had ‘grown firmly in his mouth’. Like the poet, I admired this fish for surviving the trials and tribulations of life. It is at this point that the poet achieves a moment of insight. The hooks are ‘like medals with their ribbons / frayed and wavering’, suggesting that the poet now

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