Does anyone know what the Basking Shark by Norman MacCaig is about?

Question

basically...what each stanza is about...thanks

i know its about a basking shark but i needed help analyzing it

Answer 1

Basking sharks...

Answer 2

Basking Sharks

Answer 3

BASKING SHARK
To stub an oar on a rock where none should be
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
is a thing that happened once, too often, to me.

But not too often, though enough,I count as gain
That i once met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain
that roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.

He displaced more than water, he shoggled me
Centuries back, this decadent townee
Shook on a branch of his family tree.

Swish up the dirt and, when it settles
a spring is all the clearer. I saw me in one fling,
emerging from the slime of everything.

So who's the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds as, sail after sail,
the tall fin slid away, and then the tail.


BASKING SHARK
By NORMAN MACCAIG

IDEAS
The poet gets a shock – he is first of all disorientated (“a rock where none should be”) and then threatened (“rise with a slounge”).
He feel that somehow this encounter has been a positive experience. He gives the human view of the shark.
His whole view of the relationships between creatures is disturbed: he sees himself on the shark’s family tree rather than the shark being on his (ie seeing the world as not being just about humans)
It takes him back to his origins – the origins of all life: that we are all part of the original “slime”.
He now asks: who is the stranger? who is all out of proportion? who is out of place? who is the destructive force (all ideas to do with “monster”)?
He realises that this change of perspective in his thinking is a temporary thing.

Answer 4

as above