Elizabeth Bishop
Biography
Overall Style
Online
More about Elizabeth Bishop including audio recordings can be found here.
Brief notes
- American poet, born 1913, died 1979 of a brain haemorrhage.
- Troubled early life - father died when she was a baby, mother was institutionalised. Bishop did not see her mother after the age of 5.
- Raised by a variety of people in variety of places - maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia then paternal family in Massachusetts.
- Was a close friend of prominent American poets, Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell.
- Travelled widely, particularly in South and Central America
- Suffered from feelings of inadequacy and being overwhelmed, which led to her drinking excessively.
- Had a long-term relationship with Lota Soares, whose death greatly affected her.
Overall Style
- Her poetry is not confessional (the way, for instance, Sylvia Plath's is)
- Acute observation and a piercing focus on detail characterises her work
- Aspects of her childhood are obliquely explored - loss, death and absent mothers
- She is a master of form - stanzas, metre and structure - but never allows form to overshadow content
Online
More about Elizabeth Bishop including audio recordings can be found here.
Brief notes