levelheaded: Nothonotus wapiti

Poems are often designed so the multiple meanings of words coexist and play off each other. Scientific language, particularly the binomials used to name species of living organisms, takes the opposite approach. It attempts maximum specificity. Nothonotus wapiti refers to the boulder darter, a species of small, endangered fish found in one short section of a single creek system along the border of Tennessee and Alabama. The two words—genus and species—occur together only in description of this one kind of fish.

What’s interesting, then, is the comparison this poem draws between a very specific fish with a very specific environmental niche, and a certain type of person who, out of apparent necessity, lives their whole life in one small place. The poem attests to the ability of language—even scientific language*—to convey metaphor. The uber-specific title gives us a sense of examination and observation. It’s as if we are looking at these fish and these people from a distance, or at least through eyepiece of an impersonal microscope.

But even while comparing them, the speaker does not treat the people and fish with equal regard. The people hold their beliefs “Absurdly.” They live “where buzzards circle.” They merely “mate.” The fish, on the other hand, are treated with a softer hand. The fish have adapted “so well.” They “specialize.” We read regret in the mention of their “extinction.” There is no questioning their “matter of courage.” And in a weird turn—perhaps the poem’s central turn—the people are conscious of the existence of the fish. They “find it hard to grasp” the fish’s inability to survive outside a single stretch of creek.

With the people’s perplexity, the speaker seems to explain why she holds the people in purposeful but slight contempt. Their willful ignorance is somehow dismissive of the once-and-for-all extinction of “wavy copper-colored lines” and “yellow-spotted fins” that will never, ever grace the earth again. At its simplest, this poem curses ignorance for its role in environmental degradation.

But the final irony of the poem lies in the fact that people are not like fish at all. A fish cannot survive if its environment is disrupted because it is more vulnerable to predators, or because it can’t withstand a change in the creek’s pH level. Humans, on the other hand, are incredibly adaptable. There are very few places on the planet we cannot survive (with the right tools). In other words, the initial idea that “There are folks who would die / if moved to a nearby city” is mostly untrue. Sure, there are people who would “go broke” if moved to a nearby city. More sure, there are people who would “complain profusely” if moved to a nearby city.  But to say they “would die” is part of the point here. The stakes are always highest when they affect you directly. Everything else is background noise. It’s hard to remember the fish, or care too deeply for them. But think of the fish.

*We should note, even scientific language is not immune to odd, interesting, poetic juxapositions. “Wapiti” is a word of Shawnee origin for elk, presumably used for the Elk River in which this fish was discovered. Elk were extirpated from this region many years ago.

-The Editors