Elizabeth Bishop

1911-1979

ABOUT HER POEMS..

• Elizabeth Bishop's poems were always admired for the purity and precision of her descriptions

• In her early poems, the attention to external detail reveals an internal emotional realm.

• Bishop's early works use surrealism and imagism to create a new reality in which she minimizes the reference to self in poetry

• Her later poems become more autobiographical and more concerned with a quest for personal identity.

Elizabeth Bishop was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts

When she was 8 months old her father died, and when she was 5 her mother was committed to a mental asylum

From ages 3 to 6, Bishop lived in Great Village, Nova Scotia, with her mother's parents, and was then taken in by her father's family in Worcester and Boston

•She earned a She earned a bachelor's bachelor's degree from degree from Vassar College Vassar College in 1934in 1934

•Using money from Using money from her fathers death, she her fathers death, she spent time traveling to spent time traveling to France, Spain, North France, Spain, North Africa, Ireland, and Africa, Ireland, and Italy and then settled Italy and then settled in Key West, Florida, in Key West, Florida, for four years. for four years.

Her poetry is filled Her poetry is filled with descriptions of with descriptions of her travels and the her travels and the scenery which scenery which surrounded her, as surrounded her, as with the Florida with the Florida poems in her first poems in her first book of verse, book of verse, North North and Southand South, published , published in 1946in 1946

For years she was considered a "poet's poet," but with the publication of her last book, Geography III, in 1976, Bishop was finally established as a major force in contemporary literature.

She received the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for her collection, Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring.

•Her Complete Poems won the National Book Award in 1970. That same year, Bishop began teaching at Harvard University, where she worked for seven years.

•Elizabeth Bishop was awarded the Fellowship of The Academy of American Poets in 1964

She was a lesbian and her lesbian lover was Lota de Macedo Soares.

She was influenced by the poet Marianne

Moore, who was a close friend, mentor, a

nd

stabilizing force in her life, and Robert L

owell.

After the suicide of Lota de Macedo Soares, Bishop increasingly began to live in the United States, and became poet-in-residence at Harvard University in 1969.

•A close friendship with Alice

Methfessel began in 1971 and

continued until the tim

e of

Bishop's death in 1979. Her

final poetry volume Geography

III, was published in 1976.

•The form she wrote her poem in was villanelle. It is an intricately patterened, nineteen-line lyric poem.

One ArtThe art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof 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, ornext-to-last, of three beloved 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 gestureI love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to masterthough it may look like (Write it!) a disaster

Who was Lota de Macedo Soares?

• Best friend

• Teacher

• Lover

• Mother

How old was she when her mother was put in a mental asylum?

• 5 years old

• 8 years old

• 10 years old

• 3 years old

How old was she when her father died?

• 8 years old• 8 months old• 2 years old• 2 months old

What is a Villanelle?

• An intricately patterned ;19-line lunic poem

• a poem with 6-lines and a rhyme scheme consisting on ab ab ab

• A poem with no rhyme scheme with 19 lines

• None of the above

Where was Elizabeth born?

– Alabama– Massachusetts– California– Canada

Where did her mother live?

• With her new husband, John, in Canada• In a mental hospital• She was homeless, so she didn’t live

anywhere.• With her daughter and her daughter’s lover

When did she die?

• 1962• 1974• 1979• 1967