Reading as a writer – Aquarium by Kim Addonizio

This poem first really grabbed my attention when I read the final line: “We find them there, eyes open in surprise.” This wrenching image, fish suffocating, their dream snuffed, brought me back to read the poem over and over, despite the sorrow I felt each time. I couldn’t get away from the contrast of the beautiful, eager platys and their dead bodies on the rug. And every time it happened, I was just as surprised as they were. Addonizio is able to create this surprise by speaking of the fish and what is going on in the same way throughout the piece up until the turn. Here we have a sort of hint that something is going to happen because the language changes – we see more specific actions and suddenly draw nearer to the characters when we hear that they “persist” and that they “can’t quite let alone a possibility”. Then, bam, there they are on the rug, looking up at us in astonishment. To me, this is such a beautiful and graceful way to describe something so horrid.

The message I think Addonizio is trying to convey in this poem is that those who aren’t satisfied with their aquatic existence and try to stretch limits outside of the aquarium, though their intention is a good one, often end up dead “on the rug”. Besides the meanings of her words, many other aspects of Addonizio’s writing helps to convey this as well. First, the form; the poem is a sonnet – fourteen lines, roughly ten syllables per line, though some are nine, eleven, or thirteen. Within this form, Addonizio doesn’t seem to follow any others. Meter, rhyme scheme, and word sounds follow an irregular path through the piece. She chooses rhymes or high/low sounding words at various places to give emphasis, such as “displays their slow progress from end to end.” There are a lot of low sounds here implying slowness, and “end to end” makes this trip they take to nowhere stick out. These instances, however, occur sporadically through the piece. So, the walls of the sonnet can be compared to the aquarium and within them are spots of intensity here and there (the fish) floating about aimlessly. Jumping out of the frame of form can be dangerous, especially when what’s being written cannot belong outside of it.

What I learned from this piece was the effectiveness of using form even when writing about something that wouldn’t be thought to need form (for example, fish ambling about an aquarium). Form can serve to contrast with fluidity and otherwise very loose writing.

~ by doug on May 9, 2008.