Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth BishopWhy Elizabeth Bishop was Considered to be Dickonsonian in Her Writing Style Poet Elizabeth Bishop was as simple as she was complex. The lucid and uncomplicated images she created with her seemingly elementary style were anything but; in fact, the complexity that resides within her characteristically simple prose, which demonstrate a purity and precision like no other, are known only to those who can see beyond their façade. Attention to outer detail and an unquenchable desire to portray her inner pain, Bishop favored a more simplistic approach to convey the immense pain and suffering she endured throughout her life. Utilizing the concepts of surrealism and imagery, as well as incorporating landscape and geography, the troubled poet cleverly and quite appropriately captured her audience with images of her own anguish. Only since her death has Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) been generally recognized as one of the four or five finest American poets of this century. One reason it's taken so long may be Bishop's low profile: she lived in Brazil for almost half her productive life, published a slim new book of poems only once a decade, disliked giving public readings, and participated in none of the "movements" of her time. Bishop's masterly descriptive powers were the energy she invested in an attempt to found a poetry not on what had happened to its author, but on what its author saw and felt and shared with others in the present, whether what was shared was a set of friends, a series of real or imagined travels, books read, or sights seen. Bishop, besides being an award winning poet, was a prolific...
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