The Paper Nautilus

Observation is one of the main functions driving “The Paper Nautilus” forward, and it embodies the poem at many levels. One of the most apparent levels is the poem’s subject matter: The poem follows an observation of a paper nautilus. Moore is meticulous with the details, how the speaker pays close and careful attention, so much that we can’t help but become swept away in the particulars. As the speaker observes the paper nautilus, so do we as readers.

The paper nautilus, completely devoted to her task, is also “watchful” (Line 12), “guard[ing]” over the shell and her eggs so passionately “she scarcely / eats until the eggs are hatched” (Lines 14-15). As readers,

we share in the watching of watching. One of the implications of this process is that sight becomes a framing agent: the gaze of the poet creates a frame around the nautilus just as the gaze of the nautilus creates a frame around the eggs (Miller 116).

According to Andrew Miller, it is possible “The Paper Nautilus” is a “suppressed ekphrasis” defined as “descriptions that are based on photographs but that do not acknowledge these photographs in their sources” (Miller 107). With Moore’s affinity for writing about