I would like to have feedback for my broken English !!!

“The Fish” by Bishop


I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of its mouth.


He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely.


Here and there
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.


He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.


While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
— the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly —
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.



I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.


They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
— It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.


I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
— if you could call it a lip —
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.


A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.


Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.


I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels — until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by HardRock

I would appreciate any comment. The following is a paraphrae for “The Fish” by Bishop

Say: "paraphrase of"

Originally Posted by HardRock

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of its mouth.

(The poetic persona says that he caught a huge fish and held it next to the small vessel .The fish is out of water with the speaker’s hook firmly fixed in one corner of its mouth.)

He caught a fish. It was big--really big. :wink:

I see nothing that indicates the size of the boat. What am I missing?

I would say that fish is like a fish out of water. :wink:

The fish is partly out of the water, but its weight is partly supported by the water.

Originally Posted by HardRock

He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely.

(He did not struggle .He had not never struggled. It is heavy, damaged with repeated blows, respected and unattractive.)

I think the writer meant that the fish had not struggled when the man tried to get the fish into the boat. Rather than "respected and "attractive" I would probably say "old and ugly'.

:wink:

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by HardRock

Here and there
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.

(Its tanned skin hung in lines here and there as wallpaper that are old and colorful and its pattern also is like wallpaper .It is like a full-blown flowers that are tainted and gone over time.)

I guess that by saying the fish's skin is like old wallpaper he means that it is peeling. Also, wallpaper that has been stained by water, will be brown, I think. I don't know what "lost through age" means.

Originally Posted by HardRock

He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.

(It was stained with cerripedes, well lime roses, and it is sick with small white sea-lice. It hung down under two or three pieces of green grass.)

What are cirripedes? Barnacles? What are well lime roses? What might you say besides "sick with small white sea-lice"?

It was not hanging from the green grass. Instead, the green grass was hanging from it.

Originally Posted by HardRock

While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
— the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly —
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.

(Whereas it was taking unhealthy air in through its gills, which are frightening, and dripping blood and that can be severed so badly, I thought of the harsh, white meat that is compressed together as feathers, the huge and small bones, and the reds and blacks of its bight intestines, and the pink swim-bladder that is as a huge peony. )

It was breathing air through its gills, and fish can't breathe air (except for the lungfish, of course.) The writer means to say that it is the gills that can cut, not the blood. If its entrails are showing, the fish must be dead. No wonder it didn't struggle!

:)

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by HardRock

I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.

(I saw its eyes that were much bigger than mine, yet they lack depth, and they looked yellow. Its irises were deep into its head and were wrapped with stained, thin metal sheeting, which were seen through its lenses of aged smashed isinglass.)

Seeing the eyes and looking into them are two different things. Also, say "they lacked depth". "Smashed" is not the same thing as "scratched".

Originally Posted by HardRock

They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
— It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.

(The eyes of the fish move away, but not to stare back at me . It was as the overturning of an entity towards the daylight.)

I don't think "object" and "entity" are synonymous.

[Tdol]

He's into paraphrasing at the moment.

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by tdol

He's into paraphrasing at the moment.

I noticed.

:wink:

[Tdol]

[RonBee]

Originally Posted by HardRock

I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels — until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

(I looked and looked at it and the sense of victory filled the small, rented small vessel from the bilge water where oil had formed a rainbow around the rusty engine to the rusty bailer that is orange, the sun-cracked cross thwarts, the rowlocks on their strings, the gunwales --- til everything was like a rainbow, rainbow, and rainbow! And I left the fish to go away.)

You have an extra small in the first sentence. In that last sentence I would say something like I released the fish and let it swim away. (Although how it could swim away is beyond me.)

:)