Golden Retrievals is a poem by Mark Doty. The poem is about a golden retriever who loves to fetch things. The speaker in the poem is the dog, and he talks about how he loves to retrieve things for his owner.
The speaker in Hawk Roosting is the hawk itself. The hawk is talking about how it is the king of the sky, and how it is the most powerful bird. The hawk is also talking about how it will never be defeated.
Both of these poems are about animals, but they are very different. Golden Retrievals is a lighthearted poem about a dog’s love for fetching things. Hawk Roosting is a more serious poem about a hawk’s power and strength.
The phrase “golden retrievers” appears in this poem, which is two letters off from the words “golden retriever.” The title of this poem strongly suggests that it’s about a golden retriever. Because we know that the poem isn’t exclusively about golden retrievers after reading it, the title also provides another insight into its message.
The focus is on the speaker’s love for his owner, and how this affects his view of the world. The poem Golden Retrievals by Mark Doty is about a Golden Retriever’s perspective of the world and how much he loves his owner. The title Golden Retrievals is a play on words with Golden Retrievers, which hints that the speaker of the poem is a Golden Retriever.
The Golden Retriever speaks from personal experience when he says “I have seen / things you people would not believe” (1-2). He talks about how much he loves his owner and how he would do anything for him. The Golden Retriever is very loyal to his owner and wants to make him happy.
The Golden Retriever also talks about how he sees the world differently than his owner does. He talks about how “the world / is full of wonderful things” (5-6). To the Golden Retriever, everything is new and exciting. He is always happy and wants to make his owner happy. The Golden Retriever is a very positive dog who loves life.
The reader will see that Mark Doty has a unifying theme to his poem. The poem begins with the speaker, who is a golden retriever. This is accomplished by describing dog activities such as “fetch,” “a squirrel who’s genuinely afraid,” and “sniff the wind.”
By starting the poem off in this way, Doty is able to easily switch gears and introduce the speaker’s Golden Retriever mindset.
The poem Golden Retrievals is about a dog’s perspective of life and how they view things such as fetching, playing with other animals and even their owners. The speaker in the poem is a Golden Retriever who tells us about their day-to-day activities and how they see the world around them.
One of the main things that Golden Retrievers do is fetch, which is something that they are known for. The speaker talks about how they love to fetch and how it makes them feel good when they bring the ball back to their owner.
The second stanza continues this theme of describing the dog’s activities. However, by the second line, the dog has redirected his attention to his master’s actions. The dog is clearly distressed by his owner’s lack of attention and refers to him as being “sunk in the past.” The third stanza delves further into humanity’s difficulties. The dog is informing his owner that people spend too much time worrying about the future and that it is up to the dog to help the owner reconnect with reality.
The fourth stanza is the most powerful, and is where the dog really starts to come into his own. He talks about how he will never understand humans, but that he is content with simply being a dog. And in the final line, he gives us a glimpse of his true nature, saying “I am happy in what I am”.
Golden Retrievals is a poem about a dog’s love for his owner, and how that love is often unrequited. Mark Doty uses beautiful language to capture the innocence of the dog’s perspective, and the result is a touching and thought-provoking poem.
The distracted narrator in “Golden Retrievals” uses words to construct a mental picture of how many things he sees, and allows the reader to imagine the dog chasing after a new thing every day. He “sniffs the wind, then/ goes off again” (4-5) while the owner is “half [their] walk, sunk in thought of what [they] never can bring back,” (7-8).
Even though the Golden Retriever is constantly retrieving things, the owner never seems to be able to keep anything, whether it’s the ball or his own memories. The Golden Retriever is always in the present moment, while the owner is stuck living in the past.
This poem speaks to anyone who has ever felt like they are chasing after something that they can never seem to catch. It is a reminder to live in the present moment and enjoy the chase, because that is all that really matters.
Mark Doty’s “Golden Retrievals” is a deceptively simple poem about a man and his dog. On the surface, it appears to be just a light-hearted look at the daily antics of a Golden Retriever. But upon closer inspection, the poem takes on a deeper meaning.
The Golden Retriever in the poem is a metaphor for the human condition. We are all constantly chasing after something, whether it’s a ball or our own memories. And no matter how hard we try, we can never seem to catch it.
The poem is a reminder to live in the present moment and enjoy the chase, because that is all that really matters.
