Man’s Best Friend (and Master) Mark Doty’s poem, “Golden Retrievals,” shows the reader more than just the thoughts of a dog going for a walk. Through various poetic techniques, Doty is able to express the basis for a very serious human ailment which is present in (nearly) all of us. This chronic crisis of which we are guilty of is literally expressed in words better than any human could say. In this poem, Doty is showing us that dogs, even though they are much more simple-minded creatures than us, possess profound wisdom which we would do well to take heed. Not only that, but the situation is taken to a whole different level in the final two lines. The most basic element of this poem to understand is that the speaker is a dog (presumably a golden retriever). The thoughts of this dog quickly rattle by as the reader tries to keep up: “Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention / seconds at a time” (1-2). And for the preceding four lines the dog stays true to this, and each idea he (we’ll assume the dog here is male) presents us truly lasts no long than a second each. The above lines also serve as an excellent example of Doty’s use of enjambment in this poem to help represent the dog’s never-ending train of thought.
The transition from the first to the second stanza flow better than any of the lines surrounding them: “Sniff the wind, then / I’m off again” (4-5). By putting the break one syllable before the end of the line instead of at the end of it denies the reader even the shortest of breaks from one stanza to another. This shows that the dog is always much more interested in the “now, now, now” rather than allow for unnecessary (though by common standards, useful) breaks in thought. This works perfectly with the dog’s stream of consciousness, which is nothing but a list of anything that penetrates his array of senses: “Bunny, tumbling leaf, a