At Pleasure Bay by Robert Pinsky
"At Pleasure Bay" by Robert Pinsky is a place poem that explores the essence and atmosphere of its titular location through a fluid, unrestricted structure. Unlike many traditional poems, Pinsky’s approach allows for a more dynamic representation of Pleasure Bay, intertwining its historical significance with the natural landscape. A prominent figure in the poem is the catbird, a small gray bird known for its varied and improvisational songs, symbolizing the organic and ever-changing nature of the environment. The poem contrasts the spontaneous music of the catbird with the repetitive strains of a piano from a nearby hotel, creating a dialogue between different expressions of sound and experience. This interplay invites readers to consider the nature of pleasure in such a setting, prompting reflections on choice and presence within the landscape. As Pinsky weaves together images of life—boats, cars, and the community—he captures the idea that while the place remains constant, each encounter with it is unique. Ultimately, the poem challenges readers to engage with Pleasure Bay not just as a physical location, but as a living tapestry of experiences and emotions.
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At Pleasure Bay by Robert Pinsky
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1990 (collected in The Want Bone, 1990)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“At Pleasure Bay” is a place poem, but unlike many other poems by Pinsky, it lacks a formal structure. This gives the reader a more fluid exploration of place and captures the spirit of place through Pleasure Bay’s historical context and landscape.
In the second line of “At Pleasure Bay,” Pinsky employs the catbird as singing “never the same phrase twice.” This line reverberates throughout the poem in various scenes with the catbird at Pleasure Bay and from the music issuing from Price’s Hotel near the landing. A catbird is a small gray bird in the same family as mockingbirds and thrashers. It is known for its irregular succession of notes and its catlike meowing phrase. The catbird may act as the poet of this poem. This is observable when Pinsky, melding and changing the sounds and images of Pleasure Bay, writes of “the catbird filling/ The humid August evening near the inlet/ With borrowed music that he melds and changes.” The contrast of a piano’s music across the river, “the same phrase twice and again,” and the catbird carry the reader through “the same place. But never the same way twice.” This is the outline structure of the poem within which people live and die, boats run whiskey, and cars cross the bridge. That this is Pleasure Bay, one may wonder what is pleasurable about it. Does one choose the catbird’s phrase or the piano as one’s pleasure? Or, one may simply lay down with the spirit of place and become another presence, a part of the spirit at Pleasure Bay.
Bibliography
Dietz, Maggie, and Robert Pinsky, eds. An Invitation to Poetry: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.
Downing, Ben, and Daniel Kunitz. “The Art of Poetry: LXXVI.” Paris Review 144 (Fall, 1997): 180-213.
Pinsky, Robert. Democracy Culture and the Voice of Poetry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Pinsky, Robert. The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.
Pinsky, Robert. Poetry and the World. New York: Ecco Press, 1988.