Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)

Possibly my favorite poem of all time, "Skunk Hour" by Robert Lowell, is dedicated to Elizabeth Bishop, so I had to check her out.

Many of these poems are impressionistic, capturing a moment - like "Late Air". Some use extended metaphor, like "The Unbeliever" - taking a line from John Bunyan about the dangers of unbelief and twisting it into something different - making it seem that the atheist is both able to dream differently than those on the deck below:

Asleep he was transported there
asleep he curled
in a gilded ball at the mast's top,
or climbed inside
a gilded bird, or blindly seated himself astride

The metaphor becomes something strange and mysterious - what is the unbeliever? A dreamer? A sage?

Bishop likes to weave natural imagery in with the emotions and ideas expressed in her poems - a classic example is "The Fish", where the defeat of the veteran fish by the fisherman is problematized by the imagery of the decrepit boat, where there is a "pool of bilge / where oil had spread a rainbow / around the rusted engine"

The fish is something noble battling against the crude ugly trappings of man.… (more)

Elizabeth Bishop’s collected poems – her life’s work – can be read in a single afternoon. It will take a lot longer than that to ponder its meaning, test it against one’s own life experience, and see oneself reflected in these lines and stanzas. Although the settings change with Bishops’ extensive travels, some themes thread throughout her work – ships and sailors battling rough seas, weary laborers, unrequited or unfulfilled loves and lovers. It’s evident from the frequent biblical allusions that Bishop had a religious education, and it’s also evident Bishop found no solace in religion.

Among the most intriguing poems to me are the ones addressed to Robert Lowell and Marianne Moore. It would be interesting to explore how these highly regarded poets influenced each other’s work.… (more)