David Vasquez
ENG270
Prof. Tim Peterson
5/14/13
Lisa Fishman
Lisa Fishman grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. She earned a BA at Michigan State University. Fishman composes haunting poems that explore the movement of mind and memory. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Dear, Read (2002), The Happiness Experiment (2007), and Current (2010). Fishman and her husband, along with poet Richard Meier, run a 12-acre “Poetry Farm” in southern Wisconsin, offering summer internships for poets that exchange accommodations for farm labor. Fishman has taught at Beloit College and Columbia College Chicago. Lisa Fishman is a writer who works – confidently, brilliantly – in close-up, often phrase-to-phrase, building texts that knock you over with their rhythms & insights even though it would be very difficult indeed to paraphrase what she’s doing.
In the poem called “Three Lyrics” by Lisa Fishman, we first notice that the three stanzas in the Arcadia Project named – Field, Creature and Request, have nothing to do with each other but nature itself. The first stanza is talking about an abandoned automobile in a field of weeds that has over grown the car windows. The second stanza shifts and focuses on a creature which Fishman focuses on many aspects of different animals, and closes with a hint that the creature might be close to the ground which is all it knows. The last stanza is difficult to understand because unlike the first two stanzas; Fishman is allover with details of dreaming and doesn’t give explanation to why the third stanza is called request.