Upstream: Selected Essays

Oliver describes spending the day fishing with her partner, Molly Malone Cook. Although they repeatedly pulled clean hooks from the water, they never caught a fish. They learned later that they were using the wrong bait and fishing in the wrong spot. However, Oliver and Cook were happy that they did not catch anything. Oliver uses fishing to illustrate the dichotomous pull between appetite and empathy.

Wildlife often exhibits this duality. Oliver describes the many types of fish in the waters near her home: Tuna, flounder, blue fish, striped bass, etc. The poet both craves fish to eat and feels empathy for them. When someone brought Oliver a black duck that had been chased by dogs, she nursed it back to health. A neighborhood cat came through her window, but instead of attacking the duck, it simply walked past. When Oliver released the duck into the water, she saw a shark coming toward the shore. However, the shark did not attack the duck. Instead, a few young men who were standing nearby began to run toward the shark with sticks until Oliver admonished them and sent them away.

She describes nature as a balance between taking and giving. She recalls cleaning a blue fish that a friend gave her, only to discover live sand eels squirming in its stomach.