You have been having a wonderful summer, I see, and you’ve been to all the places in the U S A I’ve never been to (except New Orleans; I have been there). And camping — heavens!
I wonder how Phyllis Armstrong is — and she’s still at the Library, I gather. I was fond of her, and she’s been a most admirable secretary to all the poets who ever worked there. But I think you should realize that we were never “close” at all; that she knew me very slightly and during probably the lowest nine or ten moths of my life, long ago in 1949–50. I did not enjoy Washington, nor the Library, — and I am afraid Phyllis may have given you a false impression of me as a figure of gloom and reclusion. If you have the opportunity, it would be much better to talk to some of my friends and colleagues — Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, say — or May Swenson, Howard Moss, or the painter, Loren MacIver. These are all old friends and would have more accurate ideas of me—
Here is a snapshot of Robert Lowell and me taken when he visited me here last year—
I do not mind criticism of my work.
I am looking forward to seeing your chapters in September.
Sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Bishop
Caixa Postal 279, Petrópolis
Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
October 2nd, 1963
Dear Miss Elvin:
Thank you for your letters. I am actually staying in the country this week so I received them first-hand and quickly. I like what you say in the September 24th one, 2nd paragraph, about the poems. But oh dear—“the moon finds everything amusing”—how on earth did that get in there? That’s a mistake — it’s from something I never finished, scarcely wrote, I think. Will you please throw it out, and also one called “Exchanging Hats” if it has turned up again? I’m not sure what you did get. I have about eighteen poems towards a book, but I am not satisfied with them and hope to add a few more.
Since I work so slowly myself, how could I possibly object to anyone’s working slowly? Please don’t worry about it.
About Phyllis Armstrong — yes, I was a bit nervous. As I said, I liked her and I think she liked me. But at that time—1949–50—I felt that she understood very little about poetry, couldn’t tell good from bad, didn’t seem to get “the principle of thing” at all — and misunderstood, or misinterpreted, her varying poets as well, probably. She undoubtedly has learned, or had to learn, a lot since then, poor girl! And it was a bad year for me.
Now letter 2—the “Chronology”—I’ll just go straight through it making a few corrections and answering your questions as they come along.
My father was a contractor, oldest son of J. W. Bishop (who came from Prince Edward Island, so I’m ¾ths Canadian). 50 years and more ago the Bishop firm was very well known — they built public buildings, college buildings, theatres, etc., not houses. (Many in Boston, including the Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, etc.) My father died when I was 8 months old.
I lived some with my maternal grandparents in a very small village called Great Village, in Nova Scotia, and started school, just “Primer Class”, there. I lived one winter with my paternal grandparents in Worcester. Then I lived with an aunt, married but childless, in and around Boston for several years, until I went away to school. I used to go back to Great Village summers and other times, and also went to a summer camp at Wellfleet (no longer in existence) for six summers where I became passionately fond of sailing. I had very bad health as a child and my schooling was irregular until I got to Walnut Hill — that’s why I was a year or two older than average in getting through college.
My mother’s maiden name was BULMER (not Blumer, as you have it).
Yes, I began college thinking I’d “major” in music, then switched to literature. (Now I wish I’d “majored” in Greek & Latin.) I studied the clavichord briefly at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, and more briefly with Ralph Kirkpatrick. I have a Dolmetsch clavichord here—
I didn’t go to Key West until 1937 or ’38—just for a fishing trip. The next year I went back and lived there off and on for about nine years. The last year I kept a small garret — a real one — in Greenwich Village, too. I went to Yaddo once briefly in a summer (1947?) and later for longer—1950.
I don’t remember how I used the Guggenheim now! Living expenses, probably—
I wish we could forget about the Brazil Book! It is so badly written and scarcely a sentence is as I originally had it; the first 3 chapters are closest to the original. But you left out the “Diary of Helena Morley”, and I am not ashamed of that.
“In the Village” is accurate — just compressed a bit. “Gwendolyn” is, too.
By all means say I’m a friend of Marianne’s! I met her in 1934 through the college Librarian, an old friend of hers, and it was one of the great pieces of good fortune in my life. Also mention Cal (Robert Lowell, that is) and Jarrell (although I haven’t seen him for several years) (if you want to). Cal is one of my closest friends and I have the greatest admiration for his work.
I feel that the biographical facts aren’t very important or interesting. And I have moved so much, mostly coastwise, that I can’t keep the dates straight myself.
In the Pound poem, “Visits to St. Elizabeth’s”, the chracters are based on the other inmates of St. E’s, the huge government insane asylum in Washington. During the day, Pound was in an open ward, and so one’s visits to him were often interrupted. One boy used to show us his watch, another patted the floor, etc. — but naturally it’s a mixture of fact and fancy. The poem appeared in Partisan Review, not Kenyon as you have it. That’s not very important — but I have published quite a bit in Partisan, from away back, and the editors have always been friends, gave me another award, etc.—
You ask the name of the friend I took the Newfoundland walking trip with — we were not “literary” friends and I’m afraid we lost track of each other years ago, so I don’t think it matters.
I began publishing either junior or senior year at college. First, I think, were a story and a poem, maybe two, in a magazine called THE MAGAZINE edited for a few years by Ivor Winters. Before that I had received honorable mention (for the same contributions, I think) in a contest for college writing held by HOUND & HORN. I worked on the college newspaper off and on, and I was editor of my class year-book (but that had nothing to do with writing). Mary McCarthy, Eleanor Clarke, Eleanor’s sister Eunice, and I, and two or three others, started an anonymous and what we thought “advanced” literary magazine. It succeeded so well that we were asked to join our original enemy, the official college literary magazine. (But I was NOT a member of Mary McC’s GROUP — the one her recent novel’s about. She was a year ahead of me.) The story Robert Lowell referred to, I think (since he likes it) must be one called IN PRISON. It’s in the first Partisan Review Anthology — but it was published after college. The first poem of mine they published, I think, was “Love Lies Sleeping.” At least I remember getting a letter from Mary McC when I was in Paris, saying that PR was starting up again and would I send them a poem, and I think that’s the one I sent—