Sex...

...without love. I love the use of similes that Sharon Olds uses at the beginning of the poem. I become intrigued as I read: "Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice-skaters". The title of the poem catches my attention because I immediately wonder if the poet is talking about sex literally or figuratively. Since I started reading poetry just a short time ago, I begin to think that she surely must be using "sex" figuratively. I'm surprised and I wonder if I am not reading far enough into the poet's meaning because I'm pretty sure she is talking about sex in the literal sense. So I read on… Olds uses words that profoundly draw a picture in my mind: "red as steak, wine, wet…" "light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin?" "the true religious, the purists, the pros…" I really like this poem it's different than what I have read before, it reads like something that truly relates to today's world.

Birches

Birches - The first few lines of the poem remind me of a boy who is flexible in life as youth often is. I think the 'straighter darker' trees is a metaphor for a man who has matured from the 'flexible' boy of years past. The straighter trees represent men who now must conform to life's inflexible structure as the roles and responsibility changes from boyhood to manhood. 'Darker' to me symbolizes the difference in the level of joy the man felt as a child vs. the mental despair the man must now face, as he becomes a responsible adult. The reference to the word 'ice-storms' to me paints a visual picture of the inflexible man that the boy has grown into.

The Fish, my thoughts

I have a picture in my mind of the fish being a metaphor for an 'old, worn, experienced' man. I use the masculine because the author refers to the fish as 'He' in lines 5 – 7 and throughout the poem. I think the word tremendous (1) is meant to describe the importance of the fish rather than it's size. If the poet wanted to emphasize the stature of the fish she could have used a word that more describes the size such as 'huge'. The word tremendous is often used as a synonym for prodigious or stupendous.

The fact that the fish didn't fight (5) at all portrays an imagery of just being tired, too tired to fight. To further the picture, Bishop uses adjectives and metaphors ancient wallpaper representing the old man's skin.