Talk:Elizabeth Bishop

Image

An image of some sort would be nice -- does anyone know of any? JKillah 00:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

There is one at http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/us_poetry/Bishop/index.html#ereview courtesy of The Acadamy of American Poets (http://www.poets.org/lit/poet/ebishfst.htm). Not sure about the copyright issues of useing the photo. ChristineD 19:48, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Some material?

Should maybe some poems or at least links to poems be placed here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.71.12.236 (talk • contribs)

  One Art

  The art of losing isn't hard to master;
  so many things seem filled with the intent
  to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

  Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
  of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
  The art of losing isn't hard to master.

  Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
  places, and names, and where it was you meant
  to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

  I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
  next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
  The art of losing isn't hard to master.

  I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
  some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
  I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

  ---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
  I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
  the art of losing's not too hard to master
  though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

    -- Elizabeth Bishop

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.111.88.156 (talk) 08:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

References, Subjectivity, etc.

Informing the public that Louise Crane was Bishop's "first lover" seems a bit odd for encylcopedia article. Where is the reference? Where is the relevance? Some other bits that strike me as too interpretative for an encylcopedia article:
"Randall Jarrell — then the most important poetry critic in America " Jarrell has his own Wikipedia entry, so we should link to that and leave the interpretation to the reader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Jarrell
"she fell in love "
"Careful reading of her work, however, reveals a sharp confessional edge: her life story is told through poems which, though nominally addressing and describing other subject matter, including paintings and tourist destinations, in fact speak to true events (and to her, and the reader's, underlying existential states)."
"Bishop's corpus of published poetry is somewhat smaller than that of her contemporaries. This was the result of her perfectionism, however, rather than a lack of offers to print her work. Although her Complete Poems is a relatively slim volume, the quality of the poems and their continuing influence have far exceeded the book's length."

I propose the changes listed above. discussion?
Bsharvy 02:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll defend at least the third comment: Bishop was not a Confessionalist in the full-throated manner of Lowell or Berryman or Plath, but her poetry does contain a great number of biographical details and references, some of them elegantly disguised. Though Bishop was a private person, much was revealed to the general public after the posthumous publication of her letters. The poem "One Art" is far more poignant once you know about her mother's insanity and early institutionalization, for example, and about Bishop's years in Key West and Brazil. So I propose you keep that, or modify it accordingly (with my words, if you like) to reflect the character of Bishop's work.

Also, while it is true that her Collected Poems is a "relatively slim volume," I think the rest of that fourth paragraph is defensive. Bishop has nothing to apologize for. Sandover 03:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Influences

The influences boxes on poets and philosophers are usually kept clean. However, I've noticed that sometimes otherwise irrelevant names get inserted there. In the case of Elizabeth Bishop, it is the influence on Eric Van. Presumably the influence is intended to be poetic, because Bishop was a poet. Eric Van is not a respected poet. I tried to remove his name, but one of his dozen or so lackies ensured that this was quickly undone on that basis that he was a student of hers. She had many students, only a handful of whom are famous, and only a small portion of those are poets--it is this latter very small portion that deserves to be in the influence box, surely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.101.255.103 (talk) 08:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

You did not even sign. your comments

I urge you to get an account.

I am not a "lackie" ? (presumably the anonymous IP holder meant "lackey").

I refer you to WP:NPA. Failing to comply with WP:NPA will lead to you being blocked.

Eric Van is not listed as an influence on Elizabeth Bishop but as one of those who was influenced by her. There's a huge difference between "influences" and "influenced".

Saying that Eric Van is not a "respected poet" is not enough. You have to make a cogent case why he is not a respected poet. Otherwise, your comments are nothing more than a POV and will be reverted.

N.B. - If you have a particular animus against Eric Van then that will be better reflected on the Eric Van Talk Page – not here.

Tovojolo 11:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I've nothing against Van. He simply is not known as a poet. It seems the word 'respected' was confusing. He is not a poet. The onus is on those who claim he is a Bishop-influenced poet to prove that he is a poet sufficiently respectable to warrant the attribution. I can merely point to the fact that there is no evidence that he is a poet, respected or otherwise. --74.101.255.103 01:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

After reviewing the Eric Van page, I have removed his name from the list.

If, however, anyone feels he should be restored to the list, please make your case here.

I think this proves I am no one's lackey.

Tovojolo 23:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Weasel Words

I tried to edit this once, but it was undone, so I'll at least bring it up for discussion. There are gaping problems with the sentence "She is considered one of the finest 20th century poets to have written in English," such as:

1. By whom is she being considered? I'm not denying that anyone holds this opinion, but the sentence makes no reference whatsoever to whoever it is that is doing this rather favorable "considering." To describe it in a grammatical sense -- if Elizabeth Bishop is the object and "to consider" is the verb, then who or what is the subject doing the considering?
2. If, say, the considering is done by scholars, a specific citation should be made (and, probably, the name of the scholar cited). Otherwise it's simply "Scholars consider her..." which is a textbook example of a weasel word.
3. Besides that, it's redundant. The previous sentence, "She enjoyed critical acclaim in her lifetime, and her poetry continues to be widely read and studied," already conveys the message that she's a highly respected and influential poet of the era.

Unless these points can be addressed, I'll continue to believe that the sentence is a subjective statement propped up by weasel words. So I'll delete the sentence again. I'll give it up if a reasonable counterpoint can be posted. Hmmmmm382 04:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I hear you: the sentence was written in tortured grammar, and was unsourced. EB was one of "the biggies," though, and the intro should say so (with the proper citations). I'll attend to this once I've gathered the references.--Galliaz 11:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Hmmmmm382. The sentence in question uses both weasel words and puffery without citing relevant references (in the Bloom article cited, Bloom never states that Bishop was "considered one of the most important and distinguished American poets of the 20th century"). This is why I've removed this sentence. One could still convey Bishop's importance without the puffery and weasel words. However, it would require appropriate sources quoted directly.Jpcohen (talk) 05:05, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Copyright problem

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Bishop

What was the comparison with Bishops poem and Daphne Beals short story. Or how does the sentence of Beal , Lucky as I have always been in my life, I lost something too" related to Elizabeth Bishop's poem. I need some answers, some feedback. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.197.103.180 (talk) 17:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

New Section Focused on Her Poetry

I suggest the creation of a new section of this article that focuses on Bishop's writing. It should outline her publication history, public recognition (awards, posts, etc.), and her development as a writer. Anyone have any thoughts on this idea?Jpcohen (talk) 04:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. Span (talk) 19:50, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I have started a "Publication history and awards" section to this article.Jpcohen (talk) 17:34, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree completely. When I first came to this article, I was irked that the section on literary style began with the subject of her sexual orientation. Bishop was original. This article should convey the nature of that originality. Humanpublic (talk) 17:17, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Something about how her asthetics and observations reveals personality better than confessional poetry.I rummaged this up:

"We do not read her to discover the details of her biography, yet I feel that we end up knowing her— and I feel it all the more intensely in Key West, every time I walk past that little house, tucked behind the pandanus bush— better than many poets who set out to inform us about the particulars of their lives." [1] Humanpublic (talk) 17:49, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't have time to read this whole article right now, but this is a good quote:

"Bishop often expressed concern that she did not have a defined poetic voice. When once asked if she had “always had a true sense of your poetic voice,” Bishop responded, “No, I haven’t. This used to bother me a great deal and still does … I was worried that none of the poems went together, that there was no discernible theme” (Johnson 102)." [2] Humanpublic (talk) 19:10, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Inheritance

The inheritance from her father is described as

(§ Travels)
Bishop had an independent income in early adulthood, as a result of an inheritance from her deceased father, that did not run out until the end of her life.<ref Name="ParisR"/>

and

(§ Later career)
Bishop lectured in higher education for a number of years starting in the 1970s when her inheritance began to run out.<ref>Schwartz, Tony. [3]…</ref>

These give the impression of a sizeable income that lasted her whole life, or nearly so (which?). But the Paris Review interview ("ParisR") says (boldface added)

INTERVIEWER: Did you spend so much of your life traveling because you were looking for a perfect place?

BISHOP: No, I don’t think so. I really haven’t traveled that much. It just happened that although I wasn’t rich I had a very small income from my father, who died when I was eight months old, and it was enough when I got out of college to go places on. And I traveled extremely cheaply. I could get along in Brazil for some years but now I couldn’t possibly live on it. But the biographical sketch in the first anthology I was in said, “Oh, she’s been to Morocco, Spain, et cetera,” and this has been repeated for years even though I haven’t been back to any of these places. But I never traveled the way students travel now. Compared to my students, who seem to go to Nepal every Easter vacation, I haven’t been anywhere at all.

I'm adjusting the wording to remove the false impression. --Thnidu (talk) 17:03, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

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