Poem analysis and interpretation

¶ … Senior Class at South High

In his work On Reading Poems to a Senior Class at South High D.C. Berry characterizes a class of high school students as a school of fish. This characterization is an obvious pun, but may also be viewed as a negative portrayal of a system of education that packs students into classrooms like fish in an aquarium and diminishes the value of independent thought for the convenience of the conformity that facilitates the smooth functioning of the institution.

The poem begins with the word "Before" (line 1) sitting alone atop the first stanza signaling a transformation to come. The first stanza conveys the initial impression that the students in the classroom are like frozen fish in a package, orderly and inanimate. The narrator begins reading poetry to the class and his words change the environment, "Slowly water began to fill the room" (line 6), water being a metaphor of words. This is confirmed by lines 7-9 in which the narrator states that he did not notice this (the water) until it reached his ears.

It is significant to note that the first to stanzas are roughly the same length (four lines each), however stanza three, after the words, or ideas, begin to fill the room is one long unpunctuated sentence of eight lines. The content of the stanza reveals that though the narrator "tried to drown them with my words" (lines 13-14) the ideas the words conveyed stimulated the students who "opened up like gills for them and let me in" (lines15-17). The construction of the stanza indicates the excitement of the moment.

The fourth stanza describes the pleasure of the intellectual experience shared by the narrator and the class as they "swam around the room like thirsty tails whacking words till the bell rang" (lines 18-20), while the fifth stanza tells of the effect of the bell, "puncturing a hole in the door where we all leaked out" (lines 21- 23). Both stanza are of equal length (three lines) and convey a sense of ordered chaos that the free exchange of ideas sometimes brings about. The author incorporates alliteration, thirsty tails and whacking words to elevate the moment. Nonetheless, when the bell rings, the door is punctured, the moment ends, and they all "leak out."

The sixth stanza is just two lines, "They went to another class / I suppose and I went home" (lines24-25). The brevity of the stanza conveys the finality of the experience. The sharing of ideas is over. Life goes on. The final stanza is once again four lines as the beginning of the poem. The scene changes to the narrator at home. His cat Queen Elizabeth "licked his fins till they were hands again" (27-28). The experience is over - reality sets in. Presumably the students went back to once again being "as orderly as frozen fish in a package" (lines 4-5).