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Animal Self [1]

Poetry [2]
8.8.23

In Natasha Trethewey’s “Flounder,” [3] which appears in her debut collection, Domestic Work (Graywolf Press, 2000), the speaker of the poem recalls a scene from her memories as a young girl fishing with her aunt. The aunt explains how to spot a flounder, “A flounder, she said, and you can tell / ’cause one of its sides is black. // The other side is white, she said.” The poem ends with a strong image that subtly casts an emotional parallel with the speaker seeing a connection between her mixed-race identity and the flounder: “I stood there watching that fish flip-flop, / switch sides with every jump,” writes Trethewey. Inspired by Trethewey’s precise use of an extended metaphor, write a poem in which you cast a parallel between an animal in the wild and yourself. What characteristics will you draw out?


Source URL:https://www.pw.org/content/animal_self_0

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/content/animal_self_0 [2] https://www.pw.org/genre/poetry [3] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52891/flounder