Cleghorn, Angus, Bethany Hickok, and Thomas Travisano. Elizabeth Bishop In The 21st Century: Reading The New Editions. 2013. University of Virginia Press.

Throughout the years, Elizabeth Bishop has been overshadowed and spotlighted again and again. She has been hailed as a literary icon and deemed unimportant in the face of newer, fresher poets both during her time and long after. This collection of essays serves to unpack and understand Bishop’s life and work through the “new” editions of her work, published posthumously to shed light on previous understandings of Bishop’s work and enrich them.

The essays serve not just to understand Bishop’s work as a literary icon, but her development as a person and how that impacted her work. She was a revolutionary in how she thought and displayed her ideas for the masses, and these essays bring those qualities to the forefront, ultimately birthing a “new” Bishop with more complexity and relatability than was previously known.

Contributors: Charles Berger, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville * Jacqueline Vaught Brogan, University of Notre Dame * Angus Cleghorn, Seneca College * Jonathan Ellis, University of Sheffield * Richard Flynn, Georgia Southern University * Lorrie Goldensohn * Jeffrey Gray, Seton Hall University * Bethany Hicok, Westminster College * George Lensing, University of North Carolina * Carmen L. Oliveira * Barbara Page, Vassar College * Christina Pugh, University of Illinois at Chicago * Francesco Rognoni, Catholic University in Milan * Peggy Samuels, Drew University * Lloyd Schwartz, University of Massachusetts, Boston * Thomas Travisano, Hartwick College * Heather Treseler, Worcester State University * Gillian White, University of Michigan (courtesy of Google Books)

Duckett, Richard. “Elizabeth Bishop: Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet.” Massachusetts: Sunday Telegram, 2009, Local News, B1.

This article is less a review of Bishop’s work and more of her character. It details how Worcester figured into her poetry even though she had less than cherished memories of the place. The article notes Bishop’s time at Vassar College as a pivotal point in her career as a writer, as that was when, in 1934, Marianne Moore urged her to not pursue medical school, but rather take up the literary arts.

Bishop always resented being moved away from her maternal grandparents’ home in Nova Scotia, Canada for her paternal grandparents’ lavish home in her hometown of Worcester. Her longing for her short-lived Canadian home is noted in her poem “The Moose” while her feelings of displeasure shine through in “The Country Mouse.” But Bishop’s work does not dwell on personal feelings, preferring to focus on physical details, always keeping the personal object at a distance from the reader. Bishop believed that while a poet could use their personal lives to make poetry, it should never be the focus of the piece--it is considered too “confessional.”

"Teaching as I am now doing, I have to keep up a happy front. See, the Americans from New England are great hypocrites. It's part of tradition not to show one's feelings. But sometimes I show mine." Bishop said.

"I don't think anyone alive has a better eye than she had: The eye that sees things and the mind behind the eye that remembers," noted her friend and poet Robert Lowell.

Some interesting facts noted in the article include a commemorative plaque for Bishop on the stairs of Our Lady of Angels Church in Worcester, which was built on the site of her paternal grandparents’ old home; and on the 30th anniversary of her death, people gathered around her burial site and read her poetry aloud in remembrance.