Elizabeth Bishop was born on February 8 th, 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Before she was 5 her father had died form Brights Disease and her mother had been permanently committed to a mental hospital. Because of this she lived for three years with her mother’s parents in Great Village, NS and then with her paternal family in Worcester and Boston. Of living with her family she said she always felt like a guest. During high school she attended Walnut Hill School and went on to four years at Vassar. It was there she met Marianne Moore, who became her lifelong friend and greatly influenced her works. Elizabeth Bishop lived all over the map. From New York to Key- West Florida, she moved to Brazil for eighteen years. It was there she met Lota de Macedo Soares, whom she fell in love with. When Soares committed suicide in 1967, Bishop moved back to the States. There she taught at the University of Washington, Harvard, New York University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

BIOGRAPHY CONTINUED Before she died on October 6 th, 1979 she published four volumes of poetry, among other works of literature. These were influenced by her experiences as an orphan, a lesbian, a sufferer of alcoholism and depression, and as a rootless traveler. They were titled, North and South, A Cold Spring, Questions of Travel, and Geography 3.

After reading Elizabeth Bishop’s work, I have discovered that her poems are very challenging to read and interpret. Her words are very literal in their descriptions of situations; for example, the act of catching a fish. However they can be interpreted many different ways. For example I read several literary critiques of her work which all picked something different out of one poem. Because of this when the reader is trying to process the poem, many possible meanings go through one’s mind. This makes her poems very challenging. The one aspect I find aesthetically appealing about her work is her use of antithesis or compare and contrast in some of her poems. For example, in “Sonnet,” she speaks of a bubble in a level or a needle in a compass and the containment it suffers, compared to the freedom of the mercury of a broken thermometer or the reflected rainbow from the mirror.

ROBERT PARKER’S CRITIQUE OF “THE FISH” Perhaps many readers would take "The Fish," one of Bishop's most admired poems, as her most conclusively confident poem. There she catches a "tremendous fish" and surveys it closely in one of the finest of those precise descriptions she is famous for. Then, she says, "I stared and stared / and victory filled up / the little rented boat," "until," in the poem's final words, "everything / was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! / And I let the fish go." Here suddenly she catches what she wished for, and so no longer needs to wish. To preserve the edge of wish, then, she must give up what she has, so she can have again more truly by not having. It recalls Faulkner's claim that Hemingway failed by sticking to what he already knew he could succeed at, instead of daring the failures that, by overreaching, make the truest success.

CONT’D On the other hand, Bishop does not sound convinced that she really gains that much by catching her fish. For her cheerily sentimental word "rainbow," with its repetition that, rather than giving emphasis, only enhances the sense that she feels the word's inadequacy, together with the sudden exclamation point and its redoubled effect of straining too hard at the end of what had remained an understated, calm poem, all seem to compensate for some fear of ordinariness in her understatement and quiet. Her letting the fish go, dramatized by putting it all in the final words, seems too willfully a striving for conclusive wisdom. She can throw the fish back, if she likes, but to gloat over throwing it back sounds too easily superior, since most of us, rather than throwing fish back, enjoy eating them now and then. Instead of ending with a wish for something to say, she seems not to know how to end, and so she goes, in effect, fishing for profundity, violating at the end the modesty and indirection that she was to win such admiration for.

My response to Robert Dale Parker’s critique of Elizabeth bishop’s, “The Fish” I find that I largely disagree with this overview of Bishop’s poem, “The Fish.” Parker, it seems, cross examined this poem with the intention of picking at something, anything really. He claims that her words, “rainbow, rainbow, rainbow,” show gloating at her throwing the fish back. To me, this is a very cynical way to look at the ending. I interpreted this act of throwing back the battle worn fish, as simply a gift. After her seeing the fish’s obvious victories with fishers’ before in the grown over hooks, she of course feels a sense of pride and victory in catching the fish. However, wouldn’t anyone also feel a sense of awe and compassion for this fish, near his natural time to go, who, against all odds and lines with hooks, has managed to almost live his full and natural life? For parker to say Bishop takes the easy way by throwing it back, to me, makes no sense. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply eat the fish, instead of throwing back her prize and showing compassion? She trades the glorifying act of cooking and eating the fish the good feeling one gets from giving a gift rather than taking one. The rainbow sentiment represents that feeling of peace, not the one of contempt and gloating Parker speaks of.

Sonnet (1979) Caught -- the bubble in the spirit level, a creature divided; and the compass needle wobbling and wavering, undecided. Freed -- the broken thermometer's mercury running away; and the rainbow-bird from the narrow bevel of the empty mirror, flying wherever it feels like, gay! Elizabeth Bishop

The following poem, written by me, is meant to imitate Elizabeth bishop’s poem, “Sonnet,” which can be found on the previous slide. It replicates the structure of the poem in having a sestet followed by an octave. I also tried to show the contrast of tone in her poem. It turns from a very restricted feeling to one of easiness and freedom. In my own poem the tone changes from an urgent tone to one of quiet and calm. I also tried to incorporate the personification in her work; for example, “the broken thermometer’s mercury running away.” I used, “the summer rain gently washing the trees.”

Violent- The caged tiger, Heart pounding out of chest; And the unleashed storm, Hammering and battering; Fury made tempest. Calmed- The summer rain, Gently washing the trees; And the lullaby From the new mother Of the newborn child; Silencing the baby’s cries Setting it to dreams. Jennie Pick

Biography of Elizabeth Bishop. Retrieved December 11 th, 2005 from the World Wide Web: Colwell, A. (2000, February). About Elizabeth bishop. Oxford University Press. Retrieved December 11 th, 2005 from the World Wide Web: /a-f/bishop/about.htm Elizabeth Bishop. Retrieved December 11 th, 2005 from the World Wide Web:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop

CONT’D Gioia, D. and Kennedy, X. (2002). Critical Overview. Longman Publishers. Retrieved December 11 th, 2005 from the World Wide Web: Bookbind/pubbooks/long-kennedy_poetry_10/chapter9/ Deluxe.html Lensing, G. (1995). About Elizabeth Bishop. Oxford University Press. Retrieved December 11 th, 2005 from the World Wide Web: Parker, R. (1988). Robert Dale Parker. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Retrieved December 11 th, 2005 from the World Wide Web: