Gone Fishing. (Original writing)

Gone Fishing focuses on two essential dichotomies: that of departure and return, and that of stability and change. The first section of the collection concerns the speaker's attempts to "find himself." To this end the speaker considers his family, particularly his father, as they used to be in relation to what he (the speaker) has become apart from them. The second section represents the speaker's perception of the life beyond his family. Whether he speaks generally of animals as in "A Way of Saying" or specifically of his lover as in "Indian Givers," his sense of disillusion permeates this section. Finally, the speaker decides that there is a life to be lived and that it is necessary to embrace death. In such poems as "Naked" and "Home Sweet Home," he implies a sense of reunion, a feeling of rekindling the relationships that faded as he grew up.