Elizabeth Bishop - The Complete Poems 1927 - 1979

The Complete Poems of Elizabeth Bishop were published in 1983 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. It is a volume condensed in little less than 300 pages, with about 100 of her poems, including one written at the age of sixteen, and some she would not have reprinted for being “too severe a critic of her own work,” as acknowledged by the publisher.

Bishop spent most of her life perfecting her poems before printing them. Her visions were beautifully described in her work, bringing nature and people to life in the simplest of the subjects. In “Large Bad Picture,” for example, she describes a big bad painting supposedly created by a great-uncle who becomes a school teacher instead.

In these particular descriptions, one can hear the silence between the tall cliffs, and the crying of the luckiest birds who share the ocean with intimidating ships. The descriptions are so real one must remember the title suggesting the painting wasn’t as beautiful as the poet made it sound… The bad painting, in her words, recreates beautiful scenery hiding deficiency and delivering pure magnificence.

In another poem “The End of March,” she describes a walk on the beach with details so vivid that, while reading it, I felt both my cheeks freeze round trip, as if I too, was walking along the same shore. It was a lovely walk.

In this specific poem, Bishop talks about an artichoke colored house which automatically brings to mind the ancient broccoli mountains that surrounded what used to be the beach house of my youth summers.

With Elizabeth, I found the strings of a kite that took me back to a beach of my own, transporting me to a time in childhood where all that mattered was the white colored- sand and its warmth on my feet. The kite string in Bishop’s poem was somehow tangled to my little brother’s fingers. I saw his hair flying with the kites he used to make by hand...I even saw his red little bike.

Throughout this recognized American poet’s life, a few different countries have had the pleasure of having her as part of their society, like Brazil, in which she lived for over a decade. These new societies inspired her creative mind and contributed to some of the most thoughtful poems.

In “Questions of Travel,” for instance, Bishop talks about the solitude of living far away from the place of birth. She questions the decision of starting new somewhere else, followed by an uncomfortable feeling that could be represented by some as regret, while by others as guilt.

On the same level, the poet questions whether we should have stayed and not discovered new horizons and experienced the most amazingly simple experiences, like the unique brown bird on top of a foreign gas pump, or better yet, the cracking of wooden floors in some distant old gas station.

These cracks, as she describes, made a tune out of noise. She jokes that in another country these cracks would be tested, “each pair there would have identical pitch.” Who else would hear music out of wooden cracked floors? More surprisingly, who would use these facts as part of a poem?

Joining her complete poems, we also find translations from incredibly recognized foreign poets, like Brazilian Carlos Drummond de Andrade, whose quotidian poetry subjects don’t lose its soul in Bishop’s translations. She subtly decoded the irony in Drummond’s poetry, as if this trait was familiar to her as well.

The level of Bishop’s work is high and requires a certain preparation, a mood, a desire to go somewhere new and experience the simplicity of the mere things in life - in a very sophisticated way. Once the mood is relaxing, it’s finding the one poem that matches the moment.

Whether it’s about family subjects, nature in its “exaggerated beauty,” as she acknowledges herself, or uncertainties in complex subjects like the ones described in “Questions of Travel,” there will be the one poem which will take you by the hand and transport you to a different world, sometimes closer to you than you might expect.

Indubitably, Elizabeth Bishop’s poems instigate wonder, initiate questions, and seek out answers from your very own perspective. It’s just a matter of willingly embarking in a short trip to somewhere worth it.

In my own future poetry writings, keeping Bishop in mind for the simplicity of her words and the infinity of her enthusiasm would be most helpful in the sense of finding my own voice. Patience also seems to be a great characteristic of this poet, and one that could be most useful to me.

In the realm of feelings, every word seemed to be special in Bishop’s perspectives. The simplest of the birds or the discovery of a new land; everything described by Elizabeth Bishop seemed to develop a life of its own, as if all subjects in life mattered, little or big.

Bishop proves that it takes a certain level of education to achieve the prestige that she has achieved, but she also proves that the essence comes from within, sometimes inspired in the most simplistic of the ideas.