Stanley Kumin The Catch Poem

The Catch

“The Catch”, by Stanley Kunitz, is about a dragonfly that gets caught by a boy and his father. The boy and his father are at a pond, they take notice of this dragonfly darting across the pond and the father catches it. The child asks for a peek and they father tells him to look, but also informs him that the fly doesn’t belong to anyone. Kunitz uses this poem to comment on the idea of human nature wanting to control and own everything in the world. The poem starts with a description of the dragonfly darting and “weaving” across the pond. Kunitz describes the dragonfly as “delicate”, “swift”, and fired by “glitter”. These descriptions make the dragonfly seem beautiful and innocent. He wants the reader to appreciate the dragonfly. Then in line 9 he tells the reader that the dragonfly is a symbol rather than an actual dragonfly. The dragonfly symbolizes anything that humans try to own. …show more content…
His father is trying to say that the child didn’t need to ask to look, for the dragonfly doesn’t belong to the father just because he caught it. With this Kunitz is trying to say that just because someone takes something, it doesn’t make it theirs. The last three lines reiterate this idea. When the father tells the son he will pay all his life for the privilege of ownership Kunitz is directly commenting on humans. Humans pay for the privilege of ownership, ownership isn’t inherent, what they take doesn’t belong to them; therefore, humans pay for what they take ownership