Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

~ Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop was one of the most important American poets of the 20th century, though she was never considered a prolific writer in terms of the number of poems she produced.  In fact, she admitted to starting a lot of projects and then never finishing them.  Nevertheless, her work earned her a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, as well as the position of the United State’s Poet Laureate from 1949 to 1950. 

Though Elizabeth was born in Massachusetts, she spent the initial part of her childhood living with her grandparents on a farm in Nova Scotia, Canada.  And it was her experiences there that inspired many of her poems. 

Having received a large inheritance (her father passed away when she was eight months old and her mother entered a mental institution a few years later), Elizabeth was able to travel the world.  In fact, she circumnavigated South America by boat in 1951.  And though she expected to stay in Brazil for a couple of weeks, she ended up living there for 15 years, having become increasingly interested in the literary works and poets of Latin America.

Unlike some of the poets in Elizabeth’s era, she refrained from a confessional style in her poetry.  Her life experiences did influence her poems and short stories, but she used a lot of discretion, and her work often seemed objective. 

She once chided her friend, famous poet Robert Lowell, for using private letters from his ex-wife (Elizabeth Hardwick – also a writer) for his book of poems, The Dolphin.  She told him not to publish the book and wrote to him, saying, “One can use one's life as material [for poems]—one does anyway—but these letters—aren’t you violating a trust? IF you were given permission—IF you hadn't changed them...etc. But art just isn't worth that much.”

Elizabeth’s own talent for producing vivid descriptions prompted literary critic Randall Jarrell to say of her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, North & South, “all her poems have written underneath, ‘I have seen it,’”.

Photo: Elizabeth Bishop