The Fish

Sense

"While his gills were breathing
in the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,"

Initially, when I read this poem, it felt like I was experiencing a very long and dragged out moment. Every single detail is overly described and I couldn’t help but feel a similar agony trying to read through the poem for the first time. If I had to read it aloud in one go, I would probably strain my lungs, like how Bishop describes the fish’s “frightening gills.” I also think “the frightening gills” asserts an imagery of how scared and confused the fish must have felt during the moment he was captured.

Nonsense

"And I let the fish go."

Why did the narrator let the fish go if it was just gonna die sooner or later? I was surprised by this contradictory action because the narrator took so much effort into catching this fish and carefully describing it.