A Display of Mackerel (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Mark Doty
- First Published: 1995
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Beauty, Death or dying, Food, Life and death, Life, biological, Animals, Fishes
The Poem
Mark Doty’s “A Display of Mackerel” is a meditation on beauty and on beauty’s ability to triumph over death. This free-verse poem comprises seventeen three-line stanzas and describes the poet’s encounter with a display of fish. Doty skillfully explores the rich implications of this encounter. As the living poet admires the dead fish, the human soul encounters the extraordinary beauty of the display and finds within this beauty a possible antidote for the fear of death. With gradually expanding complexity, Doty infuses this encounter with associations and...
[The entire page is 1580 words long]
