Elizabeth Bishop
Who is Elizabeth Bishop
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 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 h...
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Elizabeth Bishop Poems
- In The Waiting Room
In Worcester, Massachusetts,
I went with Aunt Consuelo
to keep her dentist's appointment
and sat and waited for her
...
- Lullaby For The Cat
Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasantest surprise.
...
- Sonnet (1928)
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.
...
- O Breath
Beneath that loved   and celebrated breast,
silent, bored really   blindly veined,
grieves, maybe   lives and lets
live, passes   bets,
...
- The Fish
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
...
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Elizabeth Bishop Quotes
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Comments about Elizabeth Bishop
- Kropotkin57: the end of march
elizabeth bishop, 1975
- Cureforpain1993: elizabeth bishop, "filling station" (1979)
- Twc_org: new in the magazine: "listening to the work: in praise of listening."
"writing takes time . . . what elizabeth bishop once described as 'a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.'"
read "listening to the work" in the magazine:
- Riana977353361: bishop o'connell vs. elizabeth seton - virginia high school softball
- Heyabbiek: why the extraneous plant?
why the taboret?
why, oh why, the doily?
tell us, elizabeth bishop. (the recording of her reading is so charming.)
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