Gary Fountain

It's saddening how many people don't know about Elizabeth Bishop anymore. She attended college in Depression-era New England, traveled around the world, and wrote meticulous, careful poetry which attempted to capture the beauty and people around her. Her work is never fluffy or sing-song, but the rhyme and meter work together to produce an image as close to concrete as possible.

Bishop was, from all accounts, a fun, entertaining woman who loved pretty things. She was as likely to fall in love with a set of leather bound volumes as a painted oar from a Brazilian rowboat, then display both proudly on her shelves. She never liked to discuss the nature of her relationships with the women she loved, fearing a lashback or just her own feelings of overexposure, but she also joked about her affinity for closet space when decorating.

This biography is a collection of stories and interviews from people who had known Elizabeth Bishop throughout various stages of her life. I thought it was going to be irritating at first, but instead, I felt like I got a real peek into what the woman was actually like.

In essence, this biography attempts to capture the essence of Elizabeth Bishop in the same way that she labored to convey the imporance of a fish, illustrate insomnia, and detail visits to a lunatic. Through snapshots and interviews, often from different people on the same event, multiple perspectives unfold and offer the image of a quiet, literary, often irreverant poet who simply wanted to live, write, and travel.

Come to think of it, that may be exactly how she'd like to be remembered.… (más)