I found that The Marvel provided the most vivid images of the three poems we read for Wednesday's class. While reading it, I was struck by the phrase "unusual sun's heat" in line 10. The sun is not particularly unusual for me. It's mostly just an orb in the sky that's much to bright to look directly at. From the perspective of a human, the sun is not unusual and neither is its heat. However, if this line is taken from the perspective of the swordfish, it makes more sense. A swordfish obviously lives under the water, where the sun is distorted, and the heat is not as intense. The sun's heat, as we feel it, is not intense, but for a swordfish used to water it would be.
Therein lies one of the important aspects of the poem. Douglas forces us to look through different perspectives and abandon the way that we normally see the world so that we can experience events through the swordfish's eye. This same perspective, when applied to other lines in the poem such as lines 13-21 where the swordfish shows his perspective of shipwrecks and. by extension, humans, enhances the meanings and images that we are shown.
I'd never noticed that about the line about the sun. It's a great observation.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I read this poem I was also struck by the line "reflecting the unusual sun's heat" and I spent a long time trying to figure out what that could mean. The point that you made makes a lot of sense because it is true that the swordfish would only be used to the sun from an under water perspective. You also made a great point about perspectives and how Douglas forces the reader to see through different eyes. I would not have considered the bird a "lord", or how hot the experience of sunshine would be for a fish out of water.
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