Elizabeth Bishop
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“not my line at all”: WIA 555.
“lists and lists”: EB to LA, November 22 [1965], VC 112.3.
“I don’t want”: EB to LA, Friday Thursday AM [1965], p. 23b, VC 112.3; EB to LA, December 26 [1965], VC 112.3.
“How wonderful”: EB to LA, January 8 [1966], VC 112.4.
“I go around”: EB to LA, January 1 [1966], VC 112.4.
“wonderful rich”: EB to LA, February 5, 1966, VC 112.4.
186 “strange”: EB to LA, January 6 [1966], VC 112.4.
Elizabeth tossed: Roxanne Cumming interview with the author, June 11, 2015.
SPRING 1977: PUSEY LIBRARY, HARVARD YARD
187 “dime”: Julie Agoos recollection, email to the author, January 14, 2014; “Assignment #5,” Julie Agoos, ms., in Mildred Nash papers, private collection.
188 “What should”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Elegy,” In the Rose of Time (Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1956), 21.
189 “brief but intense”: http://uraf.harvard.edu/michael-c-rockefeller-memorial-fellowship.
191 “humorous and tender”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Notes on a Distant Prospect,” New Yorker, February 23, 1976, 39–42. Reprinted in Robert Fitzgerald, The Third Kind of Knowledge: Memoirs and Selected Writings, ed. Penelope Laurans (New York: New Directions, 1993), 3–10.
193 “I sing of warfare”: Virgil, Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Random House, 1983), 1.
“Imagination,” “No general view”: Fitzgerald, “Notes on a Distant Prospect,” 42, 40.
CHAPTER 5: MIRACLE
195 “that dramatic year”: LS to EB, July 17 [1967], VC 118.8.
“almost enjoy”: EB to LA, January 12 [1966], VC 112.4.
“a great deal”: EB to LA, February 5, 1966, VC 112.4.
“You know exactly”: EB to LA, February 13, 1966, VC 112.4.
“weird old cottage”: EB to LA, June 9, 1966, VC 112.4.
196 “fell in love easily”: LA interview quoted in EBL 378.
“the French ladies”: ELC 362; “GK”: EB to LA, June 17, 1966, VC 112.4.
“just a trifle”: LS to LA, July 28, 1966, translated by Carmen L. Oliveira, VC 112.5.
197 “better poems”: LS to LA, July 28, 1966, translated by Carmen L. Oliveira, VC 112.5.
ressaca: EB to MS, April 25, 1963, WU.
“almost physically,”: OA 449.
“despondency,” “punishment”: OA 448.
198 “natural melancholia”: OA 367.
“keep on drinking,” Elizabeth’s insistence: LS to LA, July 28, 1966, translated by Carmen L. Oliveira, VC 112.5.
“impatient and rude”: LS to LA, July 28, 1966, translated by Carmen L. Oliveira, VC 112.5.
199 “Everything seems worse”: EB letter quoted in EBL 381.
“a bunch of crazy”: WIA 609.
“what they used,” “blow after blow”: WIA 607, 608.
“blames an awful lot”: OA 451.
200 “I have changed”: OA 450.
“grown up a lot”: OA 449.
“back to N Y”: EB to LA, September 1, 1966, VC 112.5.
“killing L inch by inch”: EB to LA, September 1, 1966, VC 112.5.
“Nobody’s heart is really”: OA 191.
“more and more”: EB to LA, September 1, 1966, VC 112.5.
“the very worst”: EB to LA, October 23, 1966, VC 112.5.
“friends and gaiety”: EB to LA, January 10, 1966 [really 1967], VC 112.6.
“manage pretty well”: OA 449.
201 “very sick”: EB to LA, September 1, 1966, VC 112.5.
“I was so used to”: OA 457.
“increasing violence”: OA 451.
“I suppose the person,” “fixed” on Elizabeth: OA 457.
“it wasn’t too wrong”: EB to LA, January 10, 1966 [really 1967], VC 112.6.
“I never felt so helpless”: OA 451.
“I hate to leave”: OA 458.
202 “grim little book”: OA 371.
“calmer”: EB to LA February 19, 1967, VC 112.6.
“all the wrong ones”: OA 457.
“want me back”: EB to LA, January 4 or 5 [1967], VC 112.6.
“hard to know”: EB to LA, January 4 or 5 [1967], VC 112.6.
“talks of me constantly”: EB to LA, January 10, 1966 [really 1967], VC 112.6.
“since there’s no one”: EB to LA, January 12 [1967], VC 112.6.
203 “Inventory”: EAP 143.
“the book has to”: EB to LA, January 14, 1967, VC 112.6.
“powerful friend”: EB to LA, January 10, 1966 [really 1967], VC 112.6.
“think it will be”: EB to LA, February 22, 1967, VC 112.6.
204 “I haven’t seen her”: OA 458.
“All I want to do”: EB to LA, March 14, 1967, VC 112.6.
“real study”: EB to LA, March 4, 1967, VC 112.6.
205 wearing the lapis lazuli ring: EB to LA, April 25, 1967, VC 112.6.
“a sort of eraser”: EB to MS, June 8, 1967, WU.
“everything else is All off”: EB to LA, June 3 [1967], VC 112.5.
“feeling of disintegration”: EB to Rosinha Leão and Magú Ribeiro [Rosinha’s sister], June 3 [1967], VC 113.7.
“what I’ll find”: EB to LA, June 3 [1967], VC 112.5.
“I want only her”: EB to Rosinha Leão and Magú Ribeiro, June 3 [1967], VC 113.7.
“ghastly poverty”: EB to LA, June 3 [1967], VC 112.5.
“wouldn’t have liked”: EB to MS, June 8, 1967, WU.
206 “maybe I said”: EB to MS, June 8, 1967, WU.
race of imitators: “If I were a critic and had a good brain I think I’d like to write a study of ‘The School of Anguish’—Lowell (by far the best), Roethke, and Berryman and their descendents like Anne Sexton and Seidel, more and more anguish and less and less poetry.” EB letter quoted in EBL 361.
207 “is really something”: EB quoted in “Poetry in an Age of Prose,” Time, June 2, 1967, 68.
“The School of Anguish”: EB letter quoted in EBL 361.
“self-pitiers”: OA 432.
“I, I, I”: EB, “The Country Mouse,” BPR 99.
208 “In Worcester”: EB, “In the Waiting Room,” draft 1, VC 58.14.
“Valley of 10,000”: WIA 630. See also BNY 319 for another report by EB on her library visit, and Jim Powell, “Bishop’s Arcadian Geographic,” Tri-Quarterly 81, Spring/Summer 1991, 170–74, for a discussion of EB’s remembered images from various issues of National Geographic.
“Babies with pointed”: EB, “In the Waiting Room,” draft 1, VC 58.14.
“Their breasts”: EB, “In the Waiting Room,” drafts, VC 58.14.
209 “unlikely”: EB, “In the Waiting Room,” BP 180–81.
210 “the Village”: EB to Rosinha Leão and Magú Ribeiro, July 10, 1967, VC 113.7.
“rejuvenate me”: WIA 625.
“The poem is a beauty”: LS to EB, August 16, 1967, VC 118.21.
“we knew each other”: LS to EB, August 17, 1967, VC 118.22.
“Oh! my darling”: LS to EB [August 2, 1967], VC 118.15.
211 “very bad mornings”: LS to EB, August 8, 1967, VC 118.19.
“terrible depression”: LS to EB, n.d. [after August 3, 1967], VC 118.17.
“Please write”: LS to EB, n.d., p. C, VC 118.9.
“Tell me again”: LS to EB, August 8, 1967, VC 118.18.
“I would like to know”: LS to EB, August 12, 1967, VC 118.20.
“your dearest dearest”: EB quoted in LS to EB, July 19, 1967, VC 118.5.
“Nothing could give”: LS to EB, August 8, 1967, VC 118.19.
“very, very light poem”: BNY 295.
first-read contract: BNY 291.
212 “Trouvée”: BP 172.
“adorable”: LS to EB, n.d. [1967], p. D, VC 118.9.
“for him you are”: LS to EB, n.d. [1967], VC 118.17.
“still turning around”: LS to EB, July 19, 1967, VC 118.6.
“a new girl called Rosanne”: LS to EB
, [July] 17 [1967], VC 118.8.
“we are two different”: LS to EB, n.d. [1967], VC 118.17.
213 “I even think”: LS to EB, August 17, 1967, VC 118.22.
“almost death”: LS to EB, July 28, 1967, VC 118.11.
“Lets not have”: LS to EB, July 28, 1967, VC 118.11.
214 “I cannot bear myself”: LS to EB, August 2, 1967, VC 118.15.
praising “Hen”: LS to EB, August 3, 1967, VC 118.16.
“I hope you think”: LS to EB, August 2, 1967, VC 118.14.
“honeybunch”: EB to LS, July 10, 1964, letter #16B, VC 118.50.
“If sexual love”: LS to EB, July 19, 1967, VC 118.5.
215 “I was telling”: LS to EB, August 2, 1967, VC 118.14.
“far away than the moon”: LS to EB, n.d. [1967], VC 118.24.
“Don’t clean any thing”: LS to EB, August 28, 1967, VC 118.26.
“Why don’t you,” “solid like”: LS to EB, August 8, 1967, VC 118.18.
“fit like a Stradivarius”: LS to EB, August 28, 1967, VC 118.26.
“The past is gone”: LS to EB, September 7 [1967], VC 118.28.
“our Tempest here”: LS to EB, July 29, 1967, VC 118.10.
“do you really like”: LS to EB, n.d. [1967], p. C, VC 118.9.
216 “very sick indeed”: EB to Rosinha Leão and Magú Ribeiro, September 23, 1967, VC 113.7.
identify her body, twelve kilo bags: OA 471.
“en cachette”: LS to EB, n.d. [1967], VC 118.17.
“Perhaps she felt”: OA 471.
217 “sudden impulse”: WIA 593.
“poet of terror”: LL 491–92.
218 “I have no idea”: OA 470.
“It’s not my fault”: EB quoted in Lloyd Schwartz, “Elizabeth Bishop and Brazil,” New Yorker, September 30, 1991, 94.
burned Elizabeth’s letters: OA 526.
sketch for Lilli: EB to LA, June 16, 1967, VC 112.6.
“It is good,” “There are times”: “The Smallest Woman in the World,” trans. EB, BPR 384, 383.
219 “I just have to keep”: EB to LA, January 13, 1968, VC 112.7.
Cal’s letter of “gossip”: LL 491–92.
few Decembers: Ian Hamilton, Robert Lowell: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1982), 370.
“Boogie”: EB to LA, January 13, 1968, VC 112.7.
“pea green”: WIA 636.
interview: EB’s interview with Kathleen Cleaver on February 1, 1969, a remarkable document of the era, survives in Roxanne Cumming’s transcript. VC 53.12.
220 “Not very beautiful”: EB to LA, January 13, 1968, VC 112.7.
“S F”: EAP 147–48.
“music, food, furniture”: WIA 640.
abandoned hatch cover: EB to LA, January 25, 1968, VC 112.7.
“Lotus White”: WIA 652.
“short prose piece”: Roxanne Cumming to Mrs. Eldridge Cleaver, April 11, 1969, included in folder with transcript of the February 1, 1969, interview, VC 53.12.
suggested she join AA: Elizabeth refused: Roxanne Cumming interview with the author, June 11, 2015.
“cold SOBER”: EB to LA, February 8, 1968, VC 112.7.
drove off to Design Research: Roxanne Cumming interview, June 11, 2015.
221 “unhappy flower child”: EAP 148.
“I keep reminding myself”: WIA 640.
“It’s about time”: Roxanne Cumming interview, June 11, 2015; “About time,” WIA 668.
“You are always”: WIA 668.
“live alone, dismal”: WIA 664.
“I miss her more”: WIA 665.
222 “adoration & rudeness”: WIA 675.
spending recklessly: EB to AB, June 10, 1970, VC 23.7.
“sort of gold”: EB to AB, Washington’s Birthday, 1970, VC 23.7.
“poor crazy girl”: WIA 677.
“all too much like”: WIA 673.
Elizabeth learned from: EB to AB, June 10, 1970, VC 23.7, and OA 529.
“long, long history”: WIA 677. It is difficult to establish precisely what happened between EB and Roxanne Cumming in the months of February through May 1970. EB was also taking Anorexyl and drinking to excess; Cumming told EB’s 1993 biographer Brett Millier that she never had a breakdown. ECL 426. EB provided a detailed account in EB to AB, June 10, 1970, VC 23.7; she describes behavior “totally unlike R’s more normal self,” as well as EB’s own distress over Cumming’s accusations that “I was ‘throwing her out’ . . . that I ‘use up’ my friends ‘like old gloves’ and ‘throw them away,’ or drive them to suicide.” Nevertheless, EB wrote, “I am fond of Roxanne, and the worse she got the more I realized how terribly lonely and friendless she is in this world and how much she needs someone to help her.” For some months after Cumming’s departure, EB still hoped to be that person. In later years, Cumming attended medical school and worked as a doctor.
“small book of poems”: WIA 677.
begun a sonnet sequence: EB to LA, January 3, 1968, VC 112.7
“remember all the good”: EB to LA, January 3, 1968, VC 112.7.
223 “ELEGY poem”: EAP 219.
“For perhaps the tenth”: EAP 149, 220–21. Lines in Spanish and English translation from “Elegía,” Miguel Hernández, The Unending Lightning: The Selected Poems of Miguel Hernández, trans. Edwin Honig (Riverdale-on-Hudson, NY: Sheep Meadow Press, 1990), 12, 44.
224 “Since she died”: EB to AB, Washington’s Birthday, 1970, VC 23.7.
“until I find you”: Hernández, “Elegía,” The Unending Lightning, 13.
“regret and guilt”: EAP 219.
“poor bitch”: EB, “Pink Dog,” BP 212; poem begun in 1963: EBL 519, 545; EB worked on “Pink Dog” in San Francisco: Roxanne Cumming interview, June 11, 2015; “Lota likes me in pink,” EB to MS, May 22, 1963, WU.
225 “just naturally born”: WIA 673.
“slightly guilty”: EB to LA, January 3, 1968, VC 112.7.
“great grief”: EB to LA, January 3, 1968, VC 112.7.
“enjoying being terribly lonely”: EB to AB, June 10, 1970, VC 23.7.
“Calling”: WIA 663n2. After considerable revision, this poem became “For Elizabeth Bishop 4” in RL’s 1973 volume History, LP 595, concluding: “ . . . Do / you still hang your words in air, ten years / unfinished, glued to your notice board, with gaps / or empties for the unimaginable phrase—/ unerring Muse who makes the casual perfect?”
“dumbfounded”: WIA 663.
“say everything”: WIA 677.
“After loving you”: RL, “Obit,” LP 642.
226 “Friday, my dear”: EB, “Crusoe in England,” BP 186.
“a long hospitalization”: EB to Dorothee Bowie [assistant to English department chair, Washington University], December 7, 1970, VC 114.5.
“bowled” him over: James Merrill, “Memories of Elizabeth Bishop,” Collected Prose, ed. J. D. McClatchy and Stephen Yenser (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 243.
collection of artifacts: Langdon Hammer, James Merrill: Life and Art (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), 483.
227 “it just meant”: Merrill, “Memories of Elizabeth Bishop,” Collected Prose, 244.
“only crying”: Merrill, “Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979),” Collected Prose, 233.
“typed as a lesbian”: Merrill, “Memories of Elizabeth Bishop,” Collected Prose, 245.
“sparkling red-and-green”: EBHA 260.
“their hatred for”: EB to Rosinha Leão and Magú Ribeiro, May 31, 1966, VC 113.7.
228 “term appointment”: OA 553.
229 “It’s awful plain”: EB, “The Moose,” BP 193.
would have made Marianne Moore: “You are not the moose,” EB wrote of the poem to her aunt Grace, to whom she dedicated “The Moose.” OA 568. RL was not alone in asking, about Marianne Moore, “aren’t all her animals her?”—as he wrote to EB in regard to “The Pelican,” and Moore’s many other significant poems about wildlife. WIA 739.
“big cow moose”: OA 141.
alliterative M-M
phrase: In April 1972, as she was composing “The Moose,” EB wrote to RL, “I am still struggling to put down all my Marianne Moore recollections.” WIA 716. EB ultimately concluded her memoir of Moore with an alliterative rhapsody, another M-M goodbye: “I find it impossible to draw conclusions or even to summarize. When I try to, I become foolishly bemused: I have a sort of subliminal glimpse of the capital letter M multiplying. I am turning the pages of an illuminated manuscript and seeing that initial letter again and again: Marianne’s monogram; mother; manners; morals; and I catch myself murmuring, ‘Manners and morals; manners as morals? Or is it morals as manners?’ Since like [Lewis Carroll’s] Alice, ‘in a dreamy sort of way,’ I can’t answer either question, it doesn’t much matter which way I put it; it seems to be making sense.” EB, “Efforts of Affection,” BPR 140.
“by craning backward”: EB, “The Moose,” BP 193.
“two women seated”: EB to RF, February 1947, VC 118.33. Note also EB’s lines in “The Moose” describing the experience of eavesdropping: “A dreamy divagation / begins in the night, / a gentle, auditory, / slow hallucination. . . .” BP 191. For an analysis of the poem that places EB in the tradition of English lyric poetry, see Helen Vendler, “The Numinous Moose,” London Review of Books 15, no. 5 (March 11, 1993), 6–8.
230 “Grandparents’ voices”: EB, “The Moose,” BP 191–93.
purchased at the Coop: OA 567.
“still seems like home”: WIA 677.
231 “sea of lilacs”: OA 565.
“I just wish”: BNY 342.
JUNE 14, 1977: SANDERS THEATRE, MEMORIAL HALL
233 “The question is”: Edwin Land quoted in Francis J. Connolly, “Land Speaks on Science, Metaphysics,” Harvard Crimson, June 15, 1977.
236 “Red-Tail Hawk and Pyre of Youth”: Robert Penn Warren, New Yorker, July 18, 1977, 32–33; also reprinted, with minor alterations, in Robert Penn Warren, Now and Then: Poems, 1976–1978 (New York: Random House, 1978), 17–21.
237 “A new volcano”: EB, “Crusoe in England,” BP 182–83.
“practice losing farther”: EB, “One Art,” BP 198.
CHAPTER 6: SUN
239 “The poor heart”: EB to AM, March 31, 1971, VC 114.40.
“beery party”: EB to AM, March 26, 1971, VC 114.39.
“blue blue blue”: EB to AM, July 1, 1972, VC 115.12.