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| Taylors Falls, MN May, 2019, J. Doolittle |
Angler
He hadn’t been at it very long when he discovered that he was becoming addicted to something. It wasn’t the fish,which he didn’t like to handle or eat, and it wasn’t the other fishermen, which he disliked even more. He simply had to go, and the fact that he hadn’t learned to swim and was still terribly afraid of drowning did not stop him from heading into deeper and deeper water each time, even though he knew there were few fish in water of that depth. For one reason or another he filed the sharp barbs off his hooks, and sometimes he forgot to put on the bait.
He knew someday he would use up all his line, and the thought still bothered him from time to time. But still he fished on alone, deeper and deeper into the dark green shadows, for he also knew that no matter how much line he let out,he would never reach bottom.
He knew someday he would use up all his line, and the thought still bothered him from time to time. But still he fished on alone, deeper and deeper into the dark green shadows, for he also knew that no matter how much line he let out,he would never reach bottom.
Mark Vinz (1942-)
From: Late Night Calls, Mark Vinz, New Rivers Press, 1992.
For 39 years, Vinz was a professor at Moorhead State College (later Moorhead State University, now Minnesota State University Moorhead). He joined the faculty in 1968, the same year I was a freshman there. I never had a class with him, but he had enough of a reputation as a poet that his name carried weight on campus, as he worked with and developed a close friendship with Tom McGrath, an already notable poet.
The words above are structured as a prose poem, which doesn't look much like a poem to most of us...it is in the reading out loud that the poem emerges. I like to think of myself as flexible and open-minded and yet, after living with poems daily throughout this month, looking at this and the other poems in the book, left me a little fidgety and unsettled. What, I wondered, would it feel like if it was arranged more like a typical poem? Could those sentences line up "properly" or would they be disobedient as most prose would be, forced into an unnatural shape?
It shaped up quite easily. Did I have a right to impose my will on his words? I think once a writer releases their work onto a page, the words take on a life of their own that interacts with the reader. It is in that interchange that meaning is made. My little exercise helped me bring meaning to this little story and linger in thought in those "dark green shadows" that he evokes. I wonder what you think about my revision...
Angler
He hadn’t been at it very long when he discovered
That he was becoming addicted to something
That he was becoming addicted to something
It wasn’t the fish,
Which he didn’t like to handle oreat,
And it wasn’t the other fishermen,
Which he disliked even more.
He simply had to go.
And the fact that he hadn’t learned to swim
And was still terribly afraid of drowning
Did not stop him from heading into
Deeper and deeper water each time,
Even though he knew there were few fish
In water of that depth.
For one reason or another he filed the sharp barbs
Off his hooks,
And sometimes he forgot to put on the bait.
He knew someday he would use up all his line,
And the thought still bothered him from time to time.
But still he fished on alone,
Deeper and deeper into the dark green shadows,
For he also knew that no matter how much line he let out,
He would never reach bottom.
Mark Vinz
The Wadena County Historical Society produced this in-depth interview with Mark Vinz, sharing his poetry and his ideas on the subject.
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