Elizabeth Bishop - Complete Poems
NOTES:
I think what distinguishes Elizabeth Bishop for me from the myriad accomplished writers of the 20th century is her ability to create a sympathetic persona in her poems: one that can be coy, effusive, comtemplatative or wry (in isolation or combination).
She fosters a rapport with the reader through simple rhetorical touches: questions; exclamations... In her poem, 'Brazil, January 1, 1502', she writes:
'every square inch filling with foliage -
big leaves, little leaves and giant leaves,
blue, blue-green and olive,
with occasional lighter veins and edges,
or a satin underleaf turned over'
Bishop isn't reductive in her mediation between subject and reader: in this passage, she's open to the variety of colours - she doesn't say 'the leaves are emerald green' as some byword for 'exotic' - and as a result, indicates wittingly or un-wittingly that the scene she's trying to describe is probably too striking to be fully contained by the scope of her writing. But she doesn't allow this to diminish the power of her verse: she's a poet in awe of her subject as I am in awe of this writing.
Then there is the technical proficiency of Bishop's writing: her villanelles, sestinas and ballads roll off the tongue. Her writing is often vivid, but tempered by its formal frame - it doesn't share the same exuberance of Frank O'Hara's writing, but he didn't have the discipline to render his imagination in such elegant descriptions as these:
'One pink flash;
then hail, the biggest size of artificial pearls.
Dead-white, wax-white, cold -
diplomat's wives' favours
from an old moon party -'
- 'Electrical Storm'.
Its also worth mentioning that Elizabeth's personae and monologues are not restricted to people: they extend to the animal kingdom. Although she didn't write in this mode extensively, I think the few examples from 'Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics' are equal to Les Murray's in his volume, Translations from the Natural World (1993) in their idiosyncrasy.
I think what distinguishes Elizabeth Bishop for me from the myriad accomplished writers of the 20th century is her ability to create a sympathetic persona in her poems: one that can be coy, effusive, comtemplatative or wry (in isolation or combination).
She fosters a rapport with the reader through simple rhetorical touches: questions; exclamations... In her poem, 'Brazil, January 1, 1502', she writes:
'every square inch filling with foliage -
big leaves, little leaves and giant leaves,
blue, blue-green and olive,
with occasional lighter veins and edges,
or a satin underleaf turned over'
Bishop isn't reductive in her mediation between subject and reader: in this passage, she's open to the variety of colours - she doesn't say 'the leaves are emerald green' as some byword for 'exotic' - and as a result, indicates wittingly or un-wittingly that the scene she's trying to describe is probably too striking to be fully contained by the scope of her writing. But she doesn't allow this to diminish the power of her verse: she's a poet in awe of her subject as I am in awe of this writing.
Then there is the technical proficiency of Bishop's writing: her villanelles, sestinas and ballads roll off the tongue. Her writing is often vivid, but tempered by its formal frame - it doesn't share the same exuberance of Frank O'Hara's writing, but he didn't have the discipline to render his imagination in such elegant descriptions as these:
'One pink flash;
then hail, the biggest size of artificial pearls.
Dead-white, wax-white, cold -
diplomat's wives' favours
from an old moon party -'
- 'Electrical Storm'.
Its also worth mentioning that Elizabeth's personae and monologues are not restricted to people: they extend to the animal kingdom. Although she didn't write in this mode extensively, I think the few examples from 'Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics' are equal to Les Murray's in his volume, Translations from the Natural World (1993) in their idiosyncrasy.