American Literature

Few have achieved the success and esteem that poet Elizabeth Bishop had during her rise to fame. Even fewer are those poets whose works have gone beyond the boundaries of their genre and school, enough to be known as the most honored yet most elusive of contemporary poets (Kalstone 3). This pioneering poet, with two Pulitzer Prizes and a dozen others, is typically associated with the modernist school of poetry, but many have regarded her work as progressive, and, as her friend and confidante Robert Lowell said, her prose felt like it belonged to a later century (4). Her innovative style and distinct voice can be attributed to the power of her words and her capacity to vividly illustrate experiences, making her one of the most prolific writers of modern poetry.

Belonging to the latter period of the modernist era, Bishops prose were greatly inspired by the works of T.S. Elliot and her mentor and artistic ally Marianne Moore, two important literary figures during the height of Modern literature. To further understand Bishops prose we look to Bonnie Costello who says accordingly that Bishops work responds to a broad and dynamic tradition of seeing and beholdingimitating, revising, challenging its claims and techniques. Her visual experience and the spatial and visual poetry which communicates it do not resist history and diversity but rather disclose it, challenging her position as a detached creative subject (Costello 2). Following this description, we can view Bishops work on two counts which reflect Bishops modernist ideals and technique the importance of remarkably dramatic but equally horizontal representations of her subject, and her penchant as a poet to indulge in this through a detached, seemingly dislocated, voice.

Looking at the modernist influence in Bishops writing, one would assume that her work is reminiscent of those of Imagist poet Ezra Pound, wherein the presentation of the subject in the narrative is so visually rich and appealing. This is true enough, but Bishops prose pushes this style further to another level of understanding. When Imagism entails the creation of images through a subjective view, Bishop recollects these images through a more objective perspective creating a more realistic and unbiased picture a style she gamely mastered during the peak of her artistic endeavors. Observed prominently in her poetic discussions of the biologically diverse areas of the Key West, she calls this approach geography or travelling wherein she merely states what is to be seen and restrains herself from divulging any emotional attachment to what she is seeing. With this style, critics have marked her as a miniaturist and her work as deceptively simple, perhaps also as a reflection of Bishops inherently mild and quiet nature (Kalstone 4). The irony of it all is her horizontal approach to poetry is also marred by her distinctly unstable point of view, what some would say is a challenge to her mastery of the structure. Instead of relying on one ideal voice, she embraces her different perspectives and their inconsistent rises and falls (Costello 15). With this, she gives life to her poetry. Take into particular account one of her most well-read and critically-acclaimed poems entitled The Fish. The poem narrates how the poet had caught a fish, and witnessing the beauty and majesty of the creature despite its unappealing visage.

She begins the poem with a very somber, almost nondescript, visual presentation of the fish
He hung a grunting weight,battered and venerableand homely. Here and therehis brown skin hung in stripslike ancient wallpaper,and its pattern of darker brownwas like wallpapershapes like full-blown rosesstained and lost through age.

Her words only relay what she is seeing and is, ideally, only conveying what can be seen and removing any emotional correlation. It is also important to note her repetition of the word wallpaper, as if emphasizing the mundane and lackluster quality of the fishs skin. And with the tipping of an object (the fish) toward the light we see a sudden change in her perspective. Bishop then views the fish within her own parameters and following her own standards of what is good and majestic I admired his sullen face, the mechanism of his jaw. She does this continuously until having reached the poetic heights of the poem (until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow) where she immediately drops the readers gaze and brings them back to a more awkward reality (And I let the fish go.).

The modernist quality of anti-realism also plays a great factor in Bishops poetry perhaps as a medium for Bishop to express her personal feelings without revealing much about her secluded life. In some of her works one can sense the usage of myth and fable to create a dynamic storyline that opens up the reader to many different meanings. One of her poems, Sestina, believed to be written as a reminder of her times with her aunt in Nova Scotia, uses this technique precisely. The poems tender tone and child-like images hide the writers unsurpassed melancholy that pervades over the poem like a haunting glow. The fifth stanza vividly visualizes the questions that Bishop must have pondered during her childhood, perhaps even extending to adulthood. The line goes With crayons the child draws a rigid houseand a winding pathway. Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears and shows it proudly to her grandmother. Her longing for a home, for a father-figure that she never had, is clearly depicted in this line. And, as the poem portrays, this happens as the Marvel Stove and the almanac hover over the scene the symbol of an emotional hearth that warms a cold house, and the reality that hovers like an open secret.

We can also see that this poem is another clear example of Bishops mastery of perspective. Structured much like most of her poems, it starts nonchalantly and discreetly within the parameters of the grandmothers more realistic view. To transition to the childs more mischievous point of view, Bishop playfully creates a break in the poems thought process
Tidying up, the old grandmotherhangs up the clever almanacon its string. Birdlike, the almanachovers half open above the child

This break opens the reader up to the more urgent language of the childs viewpoint. Bishop maximizes this by narrating the story in the third person, a practical of balancing the emotional familiarity of the text without teetering over to melodrama.

Bishops poem Sonnet on the other hand plays not with emotions and storytelling but with the musical intonation of rhyme and pattern. Her poem has a melodious quality that is derived from her accurately chosen words I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. At times, it felt derivative of the Beat generation, their poetry peppered with rhyme and said with so much emotion that it seems like a song. More intently, we can still perceive the shift in perspective within the text, although slightly less playful and discreet as her older works. The first stanza uses the first-person and as the narration progresses we are swept up by the intense emotion, climaxing in a dazzling crescendo. But as the second stanza unwinds, Bishop reverts to a more ambiguous tone that lends to the taming of the language. The language becomes less urgent yet more fixed and focused, a setting for the poems weighty end.

Other than the primary innovation of the form, we can read the lines as Bishops love for the written word its magical and mythical qualities that instigate and soothe, all at the same time There is magic made by melody A spell of rest, and quiet breath There is a seeing feeling of the writer standing out in this poetry, a focus that evolved during the Modernist period, wherein the art circles believed that their art cannot be judged by the society.

As a modernist poet, Bishop creates for us different possibilities for poetry and language. She writes what she feels and, as she has mentioned, is not fearful of creating worlds that can be hard to address initially. But because of this innovativeness and skill, she has become one of the most important names in twentieth century poetry, truly a force to be reckoned with.