When I say, “I don't like fish”
Don't take it personally.
I don't hate you, my good
friend, who's making this meal for me.
I enjoy your company; I don't mean to
be a burden.
But fish just seem so—gross to me.
And I'm sorry
you're a sturgeon.
When you bubble, “Hey, you racist!”
I know that's just your anger. And you
know we're not
a race apart: we're genus, order,
family, class—on up 'til phylum, strangers.
If anything, I'm a speciesist—
and I think we all are, really.
So let me take another shot of air
and let's enjoy this seaweed, silly.
STURGEON
ReplyDeleteTemporal range: Upper Cretaceous-Holocene
e.g.: Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus)
Scientific Classification:
Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Chordata
Superclass - Osteichthyes
Class - Actinopterygii
Order - Acipenseriformes
Family - Acipenseridae
HUMAN
Temporal range: Middle Pleistocene – Recent
Scientific Classification:
Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Chordata
Class - Mammalia
Order - Primates
Suborder - Haplorhini
Family - Hominidae
Genus - Homo
Species - H. sapiens
Although I’m unsure if you meant to make a commentary on the current state of racial relations and politics in today’s society, these parallels were the first thoughts that came to my mind as I read the poem. The speaker who is denigrating “fish” as a whole expects the sturgeon to disregard his biases due to the general nature of his hatred, rather than specificity towards individuals. She expects her excuses and rationalizations of this completely unfounded prejudice to make sense to the sturgeon. On the other hand, the sturgeon ironically fails to understand a word she is saying. Rather, it delights in its lack of awareness and blindness to the superficialities of human partiality that trouble the minds of its creators.
ReplyDeleteMm - nope. I mean, yes: this is about living in a world full of differences and idiosyncratic allegiences. BUT - sticking the shady and the sturgeon into the easy stereotypes of Privileged Majority and Subjugated Minority is not at all what this poem is about.
DeleteImagine saying these words, and really meaning them: "I don't hate you ... I enjoy your company ... But _____ just seems so—gross to me." Put in whatever difference you want there -- you're heterosexual, and you have a homosexual friend; you're a vegetarian and your buddy is eating a burger; you're an atheist and your friend is a devout Muslim. And you're NEVER going to become gay, or eat meat, or start praying to a God you don't believe exists. But you love your friend -- being unlike them does not in any way undermine your affection for them. Yet some people still feel an impulse to take these differences personally.
This poem makes a joke of it: a human with a fish friend. And the human says "I don't like fish [the food]" and the fish takes it badly, personally (as if "I don't like fish [as a creature]"). This is a funny poem - I was hoping to make that obvious with the rhyme scheme and story line.
I guess you can never be to careful with your words ;)
For me, the example that Kuntzman creates in the poem, “Dinner fight . . .” is relevant in modern society as there are opinions about certain topics that form barriers between people. This separation leads to a distinction, a way of classifying and organizing humans and who makes up our society. I interpreted the moment that Kuntzman details as a conversation taking place over dinner, and in midst of casual conversation some remark reveals someone's personal opinion on some controversial topic, and the casual tone is casted over with tension and the boundary begins to form, until someone comes up for air and has a moment of clarity in which they become the bigger person and continue on with the night. This to me is a normal dinner when I am accompanied by my parents, as we share differing opinions on politics and current events and I often find myself coming up for air and finding peace in the fact that experiences yield differing opinions.
ReplyDelete(:
DeleteFirst of all, when I first went onto the blog I instantly found myself humored by this image and just had to read it, and thus I applaud you for your creation. Anyways, my first reaction to seeing this poem was a sort of smiling relief as I could see a connection happening almost immediately of why you included a human and a fish sitting together at a dinner table having an argument.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for this realization, I saw a connection between this “dinner fight” and particularly Western culture’s approach to discrimination nowadays. We would never really dare to say that we do not like another group of people solely justified on the premise that they are different than our own, mainly due to our education in our early days to treat everyone equally. However, human nature rises to the surface, which is manifested in this poem, that we as people will have an ulterior motive to our speech when addressing other peoples in such a way that we do not wish to cause the other person to notice our true sentiment of him as a person (or fish I should say), and instead we change the subject and discredit his anger as soon as he notices that we do not genuinely enjoy his presence. To delve into detail, I thoroughly enjoy this facetious politeness in the speaker mentioning that they do not hate the fish specifically, however they do obviously do not enjoy being around them. The same thing happens when someone might have a friend of a different race, gender, sexuality, etc., and even though she does not necessarily dislike that person, she completely associates that friend with the societal label that has been constructed for her that is much easier to compartmentalize than to notice her friend’s humanity.
Overall, this poem is a genius representation of what I would define as microaggression, because of course a majority would never wish to upset a minority because of our prejudice against them, but we cannot help ourselves and some of those feelings lie deep down in our predispositions. This ultimately leads to discrimination in our world as we cannot have people preaching or hoping that a certain group of people would be exterminated or removed from existence without the obvious dissatisfaction with those people initially.
See my response to Peter. Same holds here.
Delete(Glad you liked the picture - I looked through a lot of images to find the grumpiest looking sturgeon.)
Oh my gosh this poem is so fun! At first I was skeptical of how you were going to make something so interesting with such small and evenly spaced stanzas but this proved to me how awesome a message can be with little words. I was laughing throughout this entire poem because I saw every situation I have been in that was exactly like this. This poem is so darn relatable because there are times when you want to like someone so much even though they do something that you don’t necessarily believe in.
ReplyDeleteFor some weird reason, while I laughed at this poem, I also smiled at the fact of how interesting the subject matter is in the sense of how humans operate with relationships. Humans are so awesome in the sense that even if someone is completely opposite us (say, a fish!) we can still love them for every other reason other than a physical appearance. We are all part of the same world, and if that doesn’t make you naturally empathetic then I do not know what will. People, especially these days, take every comment so personally and think that one thing someone does not like about them means that person hates them. That is not the case! This poem manifested that idea perfectly in my mind because so many times have people said “I thought you hated me” when really I just said one thing I did not like about them. Does that mean I hate them? Definitely not. You do not have to agree with everything someone does in order to love them. That is why this poem resonates so deeply within me. Thank you for this.
<3 I'm glad you like it (and get it, and relate to it).
DeleteI think the image above this poem is really interesting because clearly the woman and the sturgeon are from two different worlds but they each have to make a compromise to be friends and understand one another. I resonate with this idea because sometimes I hear my grandparents make racist or homophobic comments, and it takes time for me to realize that it is not their fault. They come from a different generation, and they are ignorant of the progress society has made. Their lack of awareness can be frustrating for me because they continue to make these comments even after I have explained to them how they are offending people. It is interesting to me that humans tend to point out the differences in one another before the similarities, and the speaker addresses this by explaining how we are all the same species yet the minor differences become a source of discrimination. Just as the speaker has made a small sacrifice to continue her friendship with the sturgeon, I find activities to do with my grandparents that we both enjoy like playing cards and watching movies and just ignore their occasional commentary that I don't necessarily agree with.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nisha completely. I also drew similar conclusions and reactions from this poem, overall the idea of how important it is to recognize both similarities and differences between myself and others. My grandparents also are prone to comments of a similar nature, and my family has also had to realize that they are used to a different time and don’t understand that what they are saying is offensive and hurtful. The poem also really resonated with me because of its emphasis on the idea of not taking something personally. This is something that I struggle with, and I often am not sure when it is the right time to take something that someone else does or says as a personal offense, which I think the poem struggles with as well. I also agree with Nisha on the idea that often people look for differences and make judgments based on them before even considering the possibility of similarities. Like Nisha, I know that it is important to find similarities between those you disagree with and focus on those rather than allow your differences to divide you.
DeleteClaire DuMont
This poem was extremely interesting to read because of the brilliant way the Kuntzman was able to blend together a social criticism with a satirical dinner party in a way which I have never been exposed to before. When I first saw the poem I had no idea what it would be about but I figured it would be funny because of its hilarious photo above it, but as I started reading, the poem went in a direction which was completely unexpected but so satisfying to read. I admire the poem’s ability to highlight how ignorant humanity is concerning itself with race and with how to treat others who appear to be different. The poem cleverly portrayed this stupidity by making the conversation between a fish and a human because it is ridiculous to imagine a fish and a human dining together, just as it is ridiculous to live in a world where a person’s treatment is predetermined by the color of their skin. This poem was able to show two individuals who could not appear to be more different, putting aside their differences and getting along because they understand that being different is not a bad thing. I think this poem’s message is extremely relevant and can relate to many individuals in this era, where everyone is trying to be accepting of any differences among individuals.
ReplyDeleteI actually initially related to the surface meaning of this poem, as I have always been the pickiest of eaters. I eat my hamburgers with just the meat and the bun, I eat just pasta and butter, and I certainly would never let my mouth make any contact with fish. My immature taste buds have led to several uncomfortable moments throughout my childhood, where I would occasionally eat dinner at my Korean friend's house and of course his mother would decide to serve an exotic dish that scared me to death. Additionally, I was a rather shy and polite young boy, so I wouldn't work up the courage to warn her that I probably could not bring myself to try what she was spending so much time preparing for us. So after five minutes of uncomfortably examining my food while we sat around the table I would always have to say something like: "I enjoy your company; I don't mean to be a burden. But Chueo-tang just seems so - gross to me." Of course I could tell that she was (rightfully) offended that I wouldn't even try her food, but I really did have affection for that family and appreciated them dearly. People take so much pride in their culture as it is such a critical aspect of our identities as human beings. It is my fault that I remain so apprehensive to explore other cultures, especially with food. I only wish there was an easier way for me to have respected and acknowledged their culture without having to become immersed in it, so as not to have offended them. Perhaps it’d be easier to just grow up and try the dish.
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction was that this poem is very lighthearted - this was made obvious to me by the absurdity of having a fish talking to a human. I think at the core of this poem is how food can represent someone’s culture. When reading this, a phrase comes to my mind, something like “eating one’s food is the best way to embrace his/her culture”. Here, the human doesn’t like fish; the speaker says this to a fish, ironically, insinuating that she doesn’t like her fish friend inherently, as a whole. I find this to be a little too extreme; sometimes I am a picky eater, but when I don’t like another culture’s food, it doesn’t mean I do not like that culture as a whole; simply, my taste buds aren’t flexible and I need to man up. I like the message in the second stanza - applied to my scenario, it would preach that above all, we are all humans experiencing the same primal feelings and desires, no matter what cultures we may come from. I think it’s a beautiful message, and one I work towards living by every day.
ReplyDeleteThe dichotomy between the tone of the speaker and the speaker’s words is, for me, what makes this poem special. While the tone is lighthearted, the words are crude and mean.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear the human and fish are at least acquaintances and possibly friends so the divisive nature of the conversation is odd. I saw from previous comments that the poem was meant to show that just because people have differences, they should not be enemies, which I agree with. However, the fact that the human says the fish is “gross” makes me think that if I were the fish I would not want to have a relationship with the human. Had the human simply pointed out they were completely different animals without calling the fish “gross” I would be completely open to a friendship. It is important to embrace differences and practice tolerance, but it is also important to have self-respect.
From prior comments, there was an assertion that people take comments too personally and this leads to conflict. Once again, I think this is true. Truthful, respectful, yet critical comments are important to bettering ourselves. Often, we have trouble seeing our own faults even if they are glaringly apparent to others. When these comments are made, we should take a moment to think about their validity and then adjust accordingly in order to maximize our self-growth.