The Goose Fish

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977

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Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Sandpipers” by Howard Nemerov (1958)

The speaker observes sandpipers (“small, dapper birds”) on the beach in August. Their legs are like “Black toothpicks, their heads nodding at nothing.” He finds the sight of them amusing as they search for food in the sand. But when a flock of sandpipers takes flight, they are far more impressive; he thinks they have courage as they fly into the distance on their migratory journey, and they are also beautiful; as they all turn together “all their bellies shine / Like mirrors flashing white with signals / I cannot read, but I wish them well.” The beauty of nature here is a stark contrast to that other shore on which two lovers wander and discover the revolting dead fish in “The Goose Fish.”

“The Sanctuary” by Howard Nemerov (1955)

This poem is from the same collection as “The Goose Fish,” but its theme is quite different. Instead of a hideous dead goose fish, Nemerov writes about the beautiful trout that swim in the clear shallow water: “With a delicate bend and reflex / Of their tails the trout slowly glide” in and out of the light and the shadow. This leads the mind of the poet into a quiet inner place, as if he is standing apart from his own life. (The link given here gives the text of the poem but does not preserve the line breaks. However, the reader can follow the text in the audio file as Nemerov reads the poem.)

“Lobsters” by Howard Nemerov (1967)

Nemerov delighted in sea creatures and described them in exquisite poetic detail. In this poem, the lobsters are in a tank in a Super Duper restaurant. Customers pick out whichever one they want. The lobsters possess “the beauty of strangeness”; they move slowly, with “The somnambulist’s effortless clambering.” If the fish in “The Goose Fish” is an “optimist” and a “comedian,” the lobsters are accorded the status of “incommensurable philosophers” as well as “victims,” and their presence stimulates the poet to metaphysical thoughts of his own.

Further Literary Resources

“Howard Nemerov” by Peter Montgomery

In this undated article from Beltway Poetry Quarterly about Nemerov’s life and career, Montgomery includes a number of quotations from Nemerov’s letters and also reproduces the poem that Nemerov read before a joint session of the U.S. Congress on March 2, 1989. The occasion was the celebration of the bicentennial of the Congress. Nemerov was U.S. poet laureate at the time. The poem is titled “To the Congress of the United States Entering Its Third Century, With Preface.” It begins “Here at the fulcrum of us all, / The feather of truth against the soul / Is weighed, and had better be found to balance / Lest our enterprise collapse in silence.”

A Howard Nemerov Reader by Howard Nemerov (1993)

This wide-ranging collection of Nemerov’s work includes about 50 poems, including “The Goose Fish” and two previously uncollected poems; eight short stories from two different collections; fourteen literary essays, including “Bottom’s Dream: The Likeness of Poems and Jokes”; and one novel, Federigo, or the Power of Love (1954). The selections cover over 40 years of Nemerov’s work.

“The Poet and the Poem: A Conversation with Howard Nemerov” (October 1988)

This is the transcript of an interview between Nemerov and Grace Cavalieri, recorded in October 1988, on the day Nemerov was inaugurated as U.S. poet laureate. Nemerov gives a few insights into his creative process, and his responses to many of the questions are as sharp and witty as a reader of “The Goose Fish” might expect.