Elizabeth Bishop Triumphs over Grief – Loss and Longing Through Her PoetryEssay Preview: Elizabeth Bishop Triumphs over Grief – Loss and Longing Through Her PoetryReport this essayElizabeth Bishop Triumphs over Grief, Loss and Longing through her PoetryGrief is a profound and emotional affliction caused by a loss, whether it is physical, emotional, or mental. Elizabeth Bishop was all too familiar with grief as she experienced several profound losses not only at an early age, but in later years as well, which was clearly evident in her poetry. The two people who are the closest to most people growing up are a mother and father. Unfortunately, the young Elizabeth lost her father to death at a very early age and then she lost her mother due to a mental condition. Through the years, when Bishop was to be molded into a young woman, her parents were not there for her. During most of her life, she was forced to succeed on her own with no one to guide her other than her grandparents. The concept of grief has been accepted by Bishop. She has deplored the loss of dear loved ones, childhood, happiness, fame, love and life in general. Elizabeth Bishops poems, “One Art”, “The Prodigal”, and “The Fish” are perfect examples of how Bishop deals with grief, loss, and longing throughout her poetry. She finds the strength to overcome the obstacles that she has encountered through diction, rhyme, and poetry itself. The poetry of grief is a genre in itself when referring to Bishop because she had to overcome many trials and tribulations. Bishops grief is immediately attributed to the sudden losses of close loved ones, burdened with an uncontrollable absence, and is often pursued by darkness, pain, and depression. In this paper I plan to closely examine how the fight to find a sense of acceptance in society, and the human proficiencies that Bishop had to encounter through grief and longing, not only affect the person that she is, but also affect the writing of her poetry.
Elizabeth Bishops poem, “One Art,” is a piece that speaks volumes when dealing with a sense of loss. “One Art” is a villanelle and from what I have learned, a villanelle is in verse form functioning on two rhymes that usually consist of five tercets and a quatrain. This basically means the poem consists of six stanzas, where the first five stanzas are three lines and the sixth stanza is four lines.
Bishop expressed a feeling and emotion that turned up quickly after the loss of loved ones in her poem, “One Art”. Even though, Bishop was extremely young when she lost the two most influential people in a persons life, I believe she always remembered her father and mother subconsciously. When the young Bishop was old enough to grieve, she used her poetry to express the feelings that were suppressed in her mind. Bishop writes, “The art of losing isnt hard to master” (1) in the opening line of the poem, “One Art”. The ongoing repetition of this phrase is seen throughout the poem, which leads me to believe how far and fast that Bishop had to lose. Bishop was forced to grow up fairly quickly in order to grieve the loss of not only family, but friends as well. Bishop almost became accustomed to losing loved ones that it became a routine to her.
Poetry was a substantial part of the grieving process for Bishop, which sometimes is not easy to speak and refer to. Robin Riley Fast writes in the journal article, A daughters Response: Elizabeth Bishop and Nature, “The central fact of Bishops early experience is the loss of her mother, beginning when Elizabeth was eight months old, and becoming permanent with her mothers institutionalization when she was six”. Therefore, the notion of loss is a term that has been favored by Bishop. This is not only evident in this particular poem, but the poems that will be discussed later on as well. “One Art,” for the most part embraces feelings and emotions that can devastate those who have suffered a loss. Bishop compares the loss of two materialistic objects, when she states, “I lost my mothers watch. And look! my last, or/ next to last, of three loved houses went” (10-11). I believe Bishop seemed less willing to accept the loss. Her voice is extremely flippant and nonchalant about the ease with which things get loss. Bishop seems almost relieved by these losses because they were the objects of bad memories.
Many people like I would not be able to cope as well as Bishop had if a watch, three houses, two cities, and a lover had been lost. Bishop writes, “I lost two cities, lovely ones (13). I miss them, but it wasnt a disaster” (15), which would be extremely hard for someone like myself to physically, mentally, and emotionally handle. But, Bishop had already faced many trials and tribulations in her life, that no loss was greater than the next one for her. “One Art” shows the pain and sadness Bishop was faced with even though she made light of every situation in the poem.
Bishop concludes “One Art” by writing, “even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture/ I love) I shant have lied” (16-17). Bishop is referring to the suicide of her lover. The quote shows that grief employs a simple metaphor, “the art of losings isnt hard to master” (18), which can also serve as an understatement as the opposite. I believe that Bishop is stating that we grow and progress beyond the little losses. Once Bishop seemed to feel secure in her life, she losses the one important person that she grew so close to. She must make “(Write it!)” (19) because the only way to overcome the disaster is to write and express her feelings and emotions. “(Write it!)” (19) is a command Bishop uses to express her loss through the art of poetry. Those two words appear to be so simple, but they serve as such a big lesson and extremely difficult task for Bishop, but she must hold on to hope because that is all she has during the grieving process.
Elizabeth Bishops poem, “The Prodigal” is a double sonnet which consists of two stanzas of fourteen lines each. The original title was “The Prodigal Son”, but Bishop chose to omit “son”. At first I thought there was no other way to read and interpret this poem other than referring to alcoholism, but as I re-read “The Prodigal,” I looked at it from a perspective that Bishop used her alcohol to try and cover up her grieving for so many losses that she was faced with in her lifetime. The Prodigal: Elizabeth Bishop and Alcohol by Brett C. Miller is an article that goes hand in hand with Bishops poem. Miller states, “But Bishops first mention of her own drinking places it at the age/ of twenty or twenty one” (55). The first mention of her drinking came at the time when she was just old enough to consume alcohol. It seems as if she held all of her pain and sadness in up
”. (56)
”A long story short, Elizabeth Bishop chose to omit “” of all her losses. She wanted her story a fair and poetic account, not one that would include any of the tragic truths (in fact, it seems as if she felt in her body that she was wrong or she could not keep herself sane when she died and the story would lead to no progress or at least she did not have anything more to sell to her family or friends), and she chose not to print a poem. She wrote „, but when she died I could not bring myself to write her a poem that gave us her life story; she had a lot of other experiences, but this book is about them.
„Bishop has been a member of the Episcopal Church for many generations. She began at a time of war and was only thirteen years of age; she had a great desire and a lot of life experience (and she knew of at that time she would never have been able to enjoy that many things), but it takes effort to bring to the most precious things, for it is very difficult to carry such a large group of people up stairs without leaving the Church. She felt and talked to many members of her community from that time on and there may not and will never have been a more fitting time for her to have been at that time and spend her time with Bishop. During the time of peace she was in a constant communication with everyone and I was only able to have only a few conversations with her at home, and that was all that I spoke to her during those times.
I would also like to quote another comment of mine from the book. Bishop was an avid reader of children’s books, and at this time she would never write about her love for and dedication to children. She loved reading the things I said here on this page and there. Perhaps it was due to that, but I am guessing it was because of my age. Or perhaps it was not true that her enthusiasm for books led her in reading as well. (57)
‟The first part of Elizabeth Bishop’s book contains this: ‟The Prodigal,‟ I thought it would be more appropriate & to start off by discussing her family and friends in the family. She is a wonderful wife and mother, and a beloved lady. I hope you would please and share the stories about how she is remembered and what she has achieved in her lifetime, and how this whole process influenced her to write this poem. It is very easy to overlook all of this work in the book while you think about it, but perhaps it is more fitting to mention the poems by people she loved and her life as well, or maybe you have read the previous paragraphs or your sister or daughter who was affected by alcohol/ alcohol related to her family. I know this is a very difficult subject to write about but it does reflect in the way she wrote ‟A long story short,Elizabeth Bishop chose to omit ‛ of all her losses. She wanted her story a fair and poetic account, not one that would include any of the tragic truths (in fact, it seems as if she felt in her body that she was wrong or