The aquarium is place of colors extraordinaire for beautiful fish poems. Include a poetry writing experience on your field trip to the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn or the Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead. Or devote the whole field trip to poetry. After the trip, write a poem about the aquarium in your home.

Synonyms for the word “color”: tint, tincture, hue, shade, complexion, tone, stain, cast.  

List of fish colors:

Black: ebony, sable, blue-black, coal-black, crow-black, smoke-black.

Blue: azure (sky-blue), ultramarine (greenish blue), cobalt (steel=gray blue), indigo (deep violet blue), sapphire (deep pure blue), turquoise (waxy bluish green or greenish blue), cerulean (dark blue).

Gray: steel-gray,  blue-gray, iron-gray, dove-gray, silver-gray, ash-gray.

Green: emerald (rich green), verdant (lettuce green), chartreuse (yellow green).

Orange: ocher (light yellow to deep orange or brown), apricot.

Pink : livid pink, red pink, salmon.

Purple: violet (purplish blue), amethyst (clear purple), lilac (light purple), mauve (moderate purple). 

Red: scarlet (brilliant red tending toward orange), vermillion (bright red), rouge (blushing red), carmine (purplish red), ruby (dark red), incarnadine (blood red).

White: immaculate (pure white), ivory, pearl-white, alabaster (translucent white), glucose (light bluish gray or bluish white).

Yellow: gold, banana, lemon, beige (wool yellow), buff (moderate orange-yellow), carotene, orange-yellow).  

 

Compare to Show the Color

If none of these colors fit, get the color by comparison. Your fish’s color makes you think of purple grapes, then you have the language –grape-purple.

Questions in Search of Details

                Give students a list of questions to help them find details for their fish descriptions.

 

What color are the eyes?

What color is the mouth?

Does the species have dots?

What color(s) are the dots?

Does it have stripes?

Are the stripes horizontal (across the body)?

Are the stripes straight up and down (vertical)?

What color(s) are the stripes?

 

Fish’s fin names fit and fine for verse.

 

dorsal fin = on back

pectoral fin = on side

pelvic fin = on belly

anal fin = on belly just in front of the tail

caudal fin = upper tail fin

lobe  = lower tail fin

 

“Fins give fish mobility, stability and maneuverability. There are two kinds of fins: paired and unpaired. The dorsal and anal fins are unpaired. They act as keels and prevent the fish from rolling. The caudal, or tail, fin is also unpaired. It helps propel and maneuver the fish. Pelvic and pectoral fins are paired. By extending both pectoral fins, a fish can brake. When one pectoral fin is extended at a time, a fish steers. Pelvic fins help keep the fish horizontal in the water. Spiny or soft rays in the fins keep the fins upright.”

 

 

                                                                        Deborah A. Coulombe

                                                                        The Seaside Naturalist:

                                                                        A Guide to Study at the Seashore

                                                                        Simon & Schuster 1984

 

 

            Information is a source for fresh and interesting language.  Names of the fish’s fins can be a source for a fish poem’s enjoyable language. Using “caudal fin” instead of “tail” adds interest to the following poem,  “Anenomefish."

 

Tell students to let anything that comes into their heads flow onto the paper. That is a way  a poem about a fish species becomes a poem. 

 

             A poem about a subject can become a poem about people. This happens dramatically with one word in the poem, “Anenomefish.” The word is “bachelor.” The fifth line could have read “Another fish appears.” Using the word,  “companion,” also suggests human feeling.  That human feeling is strengthened with the word “together” in line 6. That line by itself could really be about people – about a couple in love. “They are off together.” Then the Kicker – “adorned in subterranean rays of the sun.” This suggests bridal dress.  A fish poem has become a Valentine Day’s  card poem.

 

 

Anenomefish

 

Wide ivory  stripes                                                                         Lead                                                                                                              coast down black sides.                                                                                      

Belly shines yellow like a rich lemon.                                                              

Silver pectoral fins steer the fish on its bachelor swim.             Build-up

From out of a rock crevice a companion appears.

They are off together adorned in subterranean rays of the sun                                                                                               Kicker