Elizabeth Bishop Popular Books

Elizabeth Bishop Biography & Facts

Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976. Dwight Garner argued in 2018 that she was perhaps "the most purely gifted poet of the 20th century". Early life Bishop, an only child, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to William Thomas and Gertrude May (Bulmer) Bishop. After her father, a successful builder, died when she was eight months old, Bishop's mother became mentally ill and was institutionalized in 1916. (Bishop would later write about the time of her mother's struggles in her short story "In the Village".) Effectively orphaned during early childhood, she lived with her maternal grandparents on a farm in Great Village, Nova Scotia, a period she referred to in her writing. Bishop's mother remained in an asylum until her death in 1934, and the two were never reunited.Later in childhood, Bishop's paternal family gained custody. She was removed from the care of her grandparents and moved in with her father's wealthier family in Worcester, Massachusetts. However, Bishop was unhappy there, and her separation from her maternal grandparents made her lonely. While she was living in Worcester, she developed chronic asthma, from which she suffered for the rest of her life. Her time in Worcester is briefly chronicled in her poem "In the Waiting Room". In 1918, her grandparents, realizing that Bishop was unhappy living with them, sent her to live with her mother's eldest sister, Maude Bulmer Shepherdson, and her husband George. The Bishops paid Maude to house and educate their granddaughter. The Shepherdsons lived in a tenement in an impoverished Revere, Massachusetts, neighborhood populated mostly by Irish and Italian immigrants. The family later moved to better circumstances in Cliftondale, Massachusetts. It was Bishop's aunt who introduced her to the works of Victorian writers, including Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, Robert Browning, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Bishop was very ill as a child and, as a result, received very little formal schooling until she attended Saugus High School for her freshman year. She was accepted to the Walnut Hill School in Natick, Massachusetts, for her sophomore year but was behind on her vaccinations and not allowed to attend. Instead she spent the year at the Shore Country Day School in Beverly, Massachusetts. Bishop then boarded at the Walnut Hill School, where she studied music. At Shore Country Day, her first poems were published in a student magazine by her friend Frani Blough.Bishop entered Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in the autumn of 1929, planning to study music in order to become a composer. She gave up music because of her terror of performing, and switched her major to English, taking courses in 16th- and 17th-century literature. Bishop published her work in her senior year in The Magazine, a California publication.In 1933, she co-founded Con Spirito, a rebel literary magazine at Vassar, with writer Mary McCarthy, Margaret Miller, and the sisters Eunice and Eleanor Clark. Bishop graduated from Vassar with a bachelor's degree in 1934. Influences Bishop was greatly influenced by the poet Marianne Moore, to whom she was introduced by a librarian at Vassar in 1934. Moore took a keen interest in Bishop's work and, at one point, Moore dissuaded Bishop from attending Cornell Medical School, where Bishop had briefly enrolled after moving to New York City following her Vassar graduation. Regarding Moore's influence on Bishop's writing, Bishop's friend and Vassar peer, the writer Mary McCarthy stated, "Certainly between Bishop and Marianne Moore there are resemblances: the sort of close microscopic inspection of certain parts of experience. [However,] I think there is something a bit too demure about Marianne Moore, and there's nothing demure about Elizabeth Bishop." Moore helped Bishop first publish some of her poems in an anthology called Trial Balances in which established poets introduced the work of unknown, younger poets.It was four years before Bishop addressed "Dear Miss Moore" as "Dear Marianne" and only then at the elder poet's invitation. The friendship between the two women, memorialized by an extensive correspondence, endured until Moore's death in 1972. Bishop's "At the Fishhouses" (1955) contains allusions on several levels to Moore's 1924 poem "A Grave".She was introduced to Robert Lowell by Randall Jarrell in 1947, and they became great friends, mostly through their written correspondence, until Lowell's death in 1977. After his death, she wrote, "our friendship, [which was] often kept alive through years of separation only by letters, remained constant and affectionate, and I shall always be deeply grateful for it." They also influenced each other's poetry. Lowell cited Bishop's influence on his poem "Skunk Hour" which he said, "[was] modeled on Miss Bishop's 'The Armadillo'." Also, his poem "The Scream" is "derived from ... Bishop's story 'In the Village'." "North Haven", one of the last of her poems published during her lifetime, was written in memory of Lowell in 1978. Travels Bishop had an independent income from early adulthood, as a result of an inheritance from her deceased father, that did not run out until near the end of her life. This income allowed her to travel widely, though cheaply, without worrying about employment, and to live in many cities and countries, which are described in her poems. She wrote frequently about her love of travel in poems like "Questions of Travel" and "Over 2000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance". She lived in France for several years in the mid-1930s with a friend from Vassar, Louise Crane, who was a paper-manufacturing heiress. In 1938, the two of them purchased a house at 624 White Street in Key West, Florida. While living there Bishop made the acquaintance of Pauline Pfeiffer Hemingway, who had divorced Ernest Hemingway in 1940. She later lived in an apartment at 611 Frances Street. From 1949 to 1950, she was the Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress, and lived at Bertha Looker's Boardinghouse, 1312 30th Street Northwest, Washington, D.C., in Georgetown.Upon receiving a substantial ($2,500) traveling fellowship from Bryn Mawr College in 1951, Bishop set off to circumnavigate South America. Arriving in Santos, Brazil, in November of that year, Bishop expected to stay two weeks but stayed 15 years. She lived in Petrópolis with architect Lota (Maria Carlota) de Macedo Soares, who was descended from a prominent and notable political family. Although Bishop was not forthcoming about details of her romance with Soares, much of their relationship was documented in Bishop's extensive correspondence with Samuel Ashley Brown. In its later years t.... Discover the Elizabeth Bishop popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Elizabeth Bishop books.

Best Seller Elizabeth Bishop Books of 2024

  • Elizabeth Bishop and Translation synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop and Translation

    Mariana Machova

    This book offers a discussion of Elizabeth Bishop’s translations through closereadings of a selection of poems, with particular attention to the features that relate them to transl...

  • The FSG Poetry Anthology synopsis, comments

    The FSG Poetry Anthology

    Jonathan Galassi & Robyn Creswell

    To honor FSG's 75th anniversary, here is a unique anthology celebrating the riches and variety of its poetry listpast, present, and futurePoetry has been at the heart of Farrar, St...

  • Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop

    Axel Nesme & Jacques Pothier

    Consacré à Elizabeth Bishop, l’ouvrage examine le traitement de l’espace visuel et métaphorique dans une poésie où l’instabilité prévaut. La frontière entre espace public et espace...

  • Memoirs synopsis, comments

    Memoirs

    Robert Lowell, Steven Gould Axelrod & Grzegorz Kosc

    A complete collection of Robert Lowell’s autobiographical prose, from unpublished writings about his youth to reflections on the triumphs and confusions of his adult life.Robert Lo...

  • Paris, 7 A.M. synopsis, comments

    Paris, 7 A.M.

    Liza Wieland

    “A marvel of lost innocence” (O, The Oprah Magazine) that reimagines three lifechanging weeks poet Elizabeth Bishop spent in Paris amidst the imminent threat of World War II. June ...

  • On Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    On Elizabeth Bishop

    Colm Tóibín

    A compelling portrait of a beloved poet from one of today's most acclaimed novelistsIn this book, novelist Colm Tóibín offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of...

  • The Relevance of Metaphor synopsis, comments

    The Relevance of Metaphor

    Josie O'Donoghue

    This book considers metaphor as a communicative phenomenon in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop and Seamus Heaney, in light of the relevance theory account of communi...

  • Elizabeth Bishop in the Twenty-First Century synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop in the Twenty-First Century

    Angus Cleghorn, Bethany Hicok & Thomas Travisano

    In recent years, a series of major collections of posthumous writings by Elizabeth Bishopone of the most widely read and discussed poets of the twentieth centuryhave been published...

  • Eat This Poem synopsis, comments

    Eat This Poem

    Nicole Gulotta

    A literary cookbook that celebrates food and poetry, two of life's essential ingredients.In the same way that salt seasons ingredients to bring out their flavors, poetry seaso...

  • In Love with Hell synopsis, comments

    In Love with Hell

    William Palmer

    'Sympathetic and wonderfully perceptive . . . a heartbreaking read'NICK COHEN, Critic'Wise, witty and empathetic . . . outstanding'JIM CRACE'A fascinating treatment of the ageold p...

  • The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy synopsis, comments

    The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy

    John Brehm

    Over 125 poetic companions, from Basho to Billy Collins, Saigyo to Shakespeare.The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy received the Spirituality & Practice Book A...

  • Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore

    Joanne Feit Diehl

    This highly innovative work on poetic influence among women writers focuses on the relationship between modernist poet Elizabeth Bishop and her mentor Marianne Moore. Departing fro...

  • Art and Memory in the Work of Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    Art and Memory in the Work of Elizabeth Bishop

    Jonathan Ellis

    In Art and Memory in the Work of Elizabeth Bishop, Jonathan Ellis offers evidence for a redirection in Bishop studies toward a more thorough scrutiny of the links between Bishop's ...

  • Elizabeth Bishop and the Music of Literature synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop and the Music of Literature

    Angus Cleghorn

    Elizabeth Bishop and the Music of Literature brings together the latest understandings of how central music was to Bishop’s writing. This collection considers Bishop’s reworki...

  • Elizabeth Bishop at Work synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop at Work

    Eleanor Cook

    In her lifetime Elizabeth Bishop was appreciated as a writer’s writer (John Ashbery once called her “the writer’s writer’s writer”). But since her death in 1979 her reputation has ...

  • The Dharma of Poetry synopsis, comments

    The Dharma of Poetry

    John Brehm

    Discover how to engage with poetry to support your spiritual practice, leading to more mindfulness, equanimity, and joy.In The Dharma of Poetry, John Brehm shows how poems can open...

  • Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop

    Megan Marshall

    A biography of the brilliant, awardwinning poet by one of her former students, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Margaret Fuller. Since her death in 1979, Elizabeth Bishop,...

  • Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop

    Anne Stevenson

    Elizabeth Bishop is one of the greatest and most influential American poets of the 20th century. First published in hardback in 1998, Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop is a highly ill...

  • Love Unknown synopsis, comments

    Love Unknown

    Thomas Travisano

    An illuminating new biography of one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Bishop"Love Unknown points movingly to the many relationships that moor...

  • Books Promiscuously Read synopsis, comments

    Books Promiscuously Read

    Heather Cass White

    The critic and scholar Heather Cass White offers an exploration of the nature of readingHeather Cass White’s Books Promiscuously Read is about the pleasures of reading and its powe...

  • She Walks in Beauty synopsis, comments

    She Walks in Beauty

    Caroline Kennedy

    In She Walks in Beauty, Caroline Kennedy has once again marshaled the gifts of our greatest poets to pay a very personal tribute to the human experience, this time to the complex a...

  • The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Bishop

    Angus Cleghorn & Jonathan Ellis

    Elizabeth Bishop is increasingly recognized as one of the twentieth century's most important and original poets. Initially celebrated for the minute detail of her descriptions, wha...

  • Bate Papo com Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    Bate Papo com Elizabeth Bishop

    Sonia Beatriz Leite Ferreira Cabral

    Carla recebe uma mensagem via Facebook de uma estudante de Nova York perguntandolhe se a casa da escritora americana Elizabeth Bishop, em Ouro Preto, ainda existia. Com ajuda da ...

  • Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    Elizabeth Bishop

    Susan McCabe

    Elizabeth Bishop represents a fullscale examination of Bishop's workpoetry, prose, and selected unpublished materialto reveal how personal loss becomes implicated in her vision of ...

  • A Pocket of Time synopsis, comments

    A Pocket of Time

    Rita Wilson

    Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) grew up to become a famous poet, but before that she was a little girl who lived with her Gammie and Pa in Great Village, Nova Scotia. It was there tha...

  • Um porto para Elizabeth Bishop synopsis, comments

    Um porto para Elizabeth Bishop

    Marta Góes

    "Um porto para Elizabeth Bishop" retrata o período em que a poeta norteamericana Elizabeth Bishop viveu no Brasil, de 1951 até a década de 1970, anos em que produziu parte substanc...

  • Poems synopsis, comments

    Poems

    Elizabeth Bishop

    A Stirring Collection of VerseEmbark on an evocative journey through life and landscape with Poems, an acclaimed anthology by the peerless Elizabeth Bishop. This anthology places t...

  • Words in Air synopsis, comments

    Words in Air

    Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell

    Robert Lowell once remarked in a letter to Elizabeth Bishop that "you ha[ve] always been my favorite poet and favorite friend." The feeling was mutual. Bishop said that conversatio...

  • Letter Writing Among Poets synopsis, comments

    Letter Writing Among Poets

    Jonathan Ellis

    The first book to look at poets' letters seriously as an art formFifteen enlightening chapters by leading international biographers, critics and poets examine letter writing among ...

  • The Big New Yorker Book of Cats synopsis, comments

    The Big New Yorker Book of Cats

    The New Yorker Magazine, Haruki Murakami, Calvin Trillin & M.F.K. Fisher

    Look what The New Yorker dragged in! It’s the purrfect gathering of talent celebrating our feline companions.This bountiful collection, beautifully illustrated in fu...

  • Chat with Elizabeth bishop synopsis, comments

    Chat with Elizabeth bishop

    Sonia Beatriz Leite Ferreira Cabral

    Carla receives a message in her Facebook from a student who lives in New York asking if American writer Elizabeth Bishop home's, in Ouro Preto, still existes. With the help of Teac...

  • If You Should Fail synopsis, comments

    If You Should Fail

    Joe Moran

    'There is an honesty and a clarity in Joe Moran's book If You Should Fail that normalises and softens the usual blows of life that enables us to accept and live with them rather th...