The Imaginary Iceberg

“The Imaginary Iceberg” navigates the tensions between travel and the imagination. Some conventional notions of travel depict it as a source of inspiration, or as something that allows an individual to see the world in new ways. Bishop draws upon these connotations by setting her poem on a ship in the midst of a journey. As a practical vehicle for ocean travel, the ship represents the motion and the process of travel. Ships do not stay in the ocean, but travel from port to port. The imagined iceberg, by contrast, represents stability in the shifting ocean (See: Symbols & Motifs).

The poem’s opening line, “We’d rather have the iceberg than the ship” (Line 1), establishes that the iceberg and the ship exist in tension with one another, which is largely the result of the ship’s essential relationship with travel and the iceberg’s “stock-still[ness]” (Line 3). One cannot engage with the iceberg—or with their imagination—without participating in such a stillness. Embracing stillness to explore the imagination means that “The ship’s ignored” (Line 12).

The speaker is in an either/or relationship with both the iceberg and the ship. The speaker explores the iceberg at depth once “the ship’s sails [are] laid upon the sea” (Line 7) and the ship has come to a stop.