"Shapes like full-blown roses" -A line that's stuck with me all these many years since I first stumbled upon this poem. I was 20 and was in a poetry class at the University of Montana. I loved writing poetry back then but felt extremely out of place in the class. I fumbled my way through the course and was happy to know that I'd likely be getting a good grade so long as I did well on our final. The final was pretty straight forward, we had to choose a poem and recite it from memory. I had no idea what poem to pick, so I took our poetry text book and randomly turned to a page. The page was Elizabeth Bishops The Fish. Doh! Why couldn't it have landed on a shorter poem? I memorized it and read it successfully in front of my peers and professor. Ever since then, I have had a fond affection for the poem and as I get older I can relate to and feel even more admiration for that fantastic fish. Great poem and a very nice reading. We say the word "venerable" differently :)
Thank you tng. I'm glad you enjoyed this, like I said on soundcloud I thought of you telling me (a long time ago now) that you would sometimes play these poems for your daughter when I recorded this. The Fish is quite long though, that's the only reason I haven't tried to memorize it, although I have bits and pieces now at least. I can never read this poem without thinking of my own poetry professor reading it out loud to us at the very beginning of my very first creative writing: poetry workshop. Also, I fake it, but I actually have the occasional awful pronunciation - gained from a childhood spent reading, not talking, so I knew all the ten-bit words but not how to say them - it's very possible I'm just saying the word incorrectly! I said "affidavit" incorrectly for weeks at my new job before anyone corrected me.
Well now I'm curious as to how you pronounced affidavit? I'll definitely play this poem for my daughter. Thanks for thinking of us!