The Drunken Fisherman

The Drunken Fisherman

It is not a mystery that poems elicit different feelings and images from people of all ages, races, and creeds. It is possible that one poem could evoke a feeling of empathy from one reader who bethinks himself of times he, too, had something similar occur whereas another reader may have a feeling of despondency from the same poem. It is this credo that works are intrinsically subjective that can make understanding and critiquing poems the most enjoyable because it is incumbent upon him who reads them.

In the poem, The Drunken Fisherman by, Robert Lowell, a person may picture himself fishing along a river bank, which can evoke, from the reader, feelings of serenity. Whenever I read this poem, I feel as though I were somewhere far away, having escaped all of my troubles and worries, with only the grassy knolls and the sound of the running river between me and all of the hardships of my life.

This feeling is especially elicited in the lines, "I cast for fish that pleased my eye/ Truly Jehovah's bow suspends/ No pots of gold to weight its ends" (2-4). These lines can tell the reader that the main character is doing all of this for recreation. The words, "no pots of gold to weight its ends" evoke this feeling that the fisherman is not doing this for his livelihood.

This poem can also elicit a feeling of somberness and finality to its reader after the fisherman, in the poem, catches his fish. This feeling is consistent in the lines:

Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout
Rose to my bait. They flopped about
My canvas creel until the moth
Corrupted its unstable cloth (5-8).

In these lines, the reader can picture that the fisherman is only catching rainbow trout and that they are dying as he puts them in his basket. The death of these fish produces this somber feeling of finality for the reader. The words "flopped about" portray how the fish are trying desperately to escape from the fisherman's basket but to no avail.

It is unknown to the reader whether the fisherman might actually want to catch rainbow trout. The "gap" in this poem could be the fact that the fisherman really does not like rainbow trout. This can be inferred when the fisherman states, "I cast for fish that pleased my eye" (2), but then avers that, "Only the blood-mouthed rainbow trout/ Rose to my bait" (5-6). Here, one can picture that the fisherman is looking for certain kinds of fish, but the lowly rainbow trout are the only fish that are biting for him. In the end, the fisherman just concedes to this fact and places the fish in his creel.

The passing of time and sheer solitude of the fisherman's surroundings are also exemplified to the reader in the lines, "A calendar to tell the days/ A handkerchief to wave away/ The gnats" (9-11). Here, the word, "calendar" exemplifies this feeling of the passing of time whereas the handkerchief that is being used to swat the gnats portrays the fisherman to be in a serene area somewhere deep in the wilderness. This evocation of the passing of time can also be seen in the lines, "O wind blow cold, O wind blow hot/ Let suns stay in or suns step out" (17-18). In these two lines, the reader can infer that the sun is rising and setting and that the fisherman's surroundings are growing colder and then warmer. This seems to be signifying the changing of days.

A "digger for secret" may be best portrayed in the lines, "Children, the raging memory drools/ Over the glory of past pools" (23-24). The reader may get this feeling of nostalgia from the fisherman in the poem. He seems to be reminiscing to the days of his childhood—to a time when he was fishing as a young boy and made some "glorious" catches. This evocation of magisterial catches comes from the words, "glory of past pools" whereas "memory drools" can be inferred as the fisherman's drifting into a daydream as he remembers these good times.

From a psychological aspect, the character also seems to be very reclusive and may be trying to escape from all of his troubles. This feeling of escaping his troubles can be limned from the fact that the fisherman appears to be drunk in the poem. The reader can infer this in the line, "Pouching a bottle in one arm" (12), wherein it seems as though the fisherman has been drinking. In line 23, a "whiskey bottle" is mentioned, which denotes even more the possibility that some drinking has occurred. The reclusive aspect of this fisherman is denoted from the fact that no other characters are mentioned in this poem. From the reader's perspective, the fisherman is alone in the wilderness and the fish are his only company.

In the final stanza, the reader can infer that the fisherman is upset about his catch when he says, "Is there no way to cast my hook/ Out of this dynamited brook" (33-34). The participle, "dynamited" signals to the reader that there is nothing to be caught in this brook. It also limns frustration on the part of the fisherman who seems to be cursing the brook wherein he is fishing. His question, "Is there no way to cast my hook" (33) seems to be somewhat sarcastic and rhetorical—as if the reason for not catching any fish were directly related to how he casts his hook into the water.

In the end, this poem can be interpreted in many different ways. The old axiom, "to each his own" comes to mind because each person may glean from this poem whatever he may, and no interpretation is wrong. Whether the reader think the poem is somber and reclusive or angry and sarcastic is totally subjective in nature. There is no right or wrong answer when trying to understand the meaning of any author's works. It really all depends on the reader's own response.