Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "Learning to Swim" is a meditation on vulnerability, transformation, and the uneasy relationship between the body and the world. The poem explores the act of learning to swim not just as a physical process but as a metaphor for rebirth, for the relinquishing of control, for entering an unfamiliar but essential element. Water, here, is both a gift and a challenge—something the speaker has been given late in life, something that forces him to reconfigure his understanding of self and survival.

The opening line immediately establishes the tension between the speaker’s age and the experience of learning something so fundamental: "At forty-eight, to be given water, / which is most of the world, given life / in water, which is most of me." There is an irony in learning something so late that is, in a way, already inherent—the speaker, like all humans, is composed largely of water, and yet he has not mastered moving through it. The repetition of “given” reinforces the idea that water is not something he has taken for himself but something granted, almost bestowed upon him, as if by grace. Yet this generosity also exposes a lack, a gap in his life experience, which he is now trying to fill.

The next line crystallizes the conflict: "given ease, / which is most of what I lack." This is the heart of the poem—not just an attempt to learn a skill, but an attempt to access a state of being that has eluded the speaker. The structure of the line—breaking “ease” and “which is most of what I lack” across the enjambment—creates a pause, a hesitation, mirroring the difficulty of truly accepting this newfound gift. Learning to swim, then, becomes a larger struggle, not just about staying afloat in water but about finding ease in life itself.

The next passage continues this existential reflection: "here, where walls / don’t part to my hands, is to be born / as of three weeks ago." The contrast between solid walls and water reinforces the fundamental difference between the two environments. Walls are rigid, unyielding; water is fluid, resistant to control. The speaker, accustomed to the predictability of the solid world, now faces an element where movement is unfamiliar, where stability is elusive. The phrase "to be born / as of three weeks ago" underscores the enormity of this transition—he is not just learning but starting over, experiencing something as if for the first time.

Then comes a moment of surrender, a shift in perspective: "Taking nothing / from you, mother, or you, sky, or you, / mountain, that you wouldn’t take / if offered by the sea." This passage has an almost prayer-like quality, invoking elemental forces as if in deference to their authority. The speaker acknowledges that he is not defying nature but engaging with it on its terms. The mother here could be both literal (his own mother, who perhaps never taught him to swim) and symbolic (Mother Nature, the source of all life). The sky and the mountain—representing air and earth—are forces he has always known, but now he must learn to reconcile them with water, the missing piece.

The next lines ground the poem in the immediate, physical world: "or the pool, beside which / a woman sits who would save me / if I needed saving, in a red suit, as if flame / is the color of emergency." The presence of the lifeguard introduces a layer of both security and irony. She is there to save him if he needs it, yet her presence is not necessarily reassuring—it highlights his vulnerability. The "red suit, as if flame / is the color of emergency" draws an implicit contrast between fire and water, two opposing elements. Fire signals danger, urgency, destruction—water should be calming, life-giving. And yet, for the speaker, water is an emergency, something to be feared, something he must navigate carefully.

The poem closes on a powerful note of self-revelation: "as I do, / need saving, from solid things, / most of all, their dissolve." Here, the true source of his unease emerges—it is not just water that frightens him but the loss of solidity, the dissolution of what he has always known. Learning to swim is not just about learning a skill; it is about confronting impermanence, about embracing the instability that life demands. The final phrase, "most of all, their dissolve," lingers, suggesting that what the speaker truly fears is not drowning but the realization that nothing stays fixed, that even solid things—walls, land, the body itself—will eventually give way.

Hicok’s "Learning to Swim" is ultimately about more than swimming—it is about surrender, about learning to exist in a world that is not rigid but fluid, where control is an illusion and adaptation is necessary. The poem captures the tension between fear and wonder, between the desire for stability and the need to let go. In water, the speaker is reborn—not necessarily in triumph, but in the recognition that life itself is a constant act of learning to stay afloat.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...