Megan Marshall - Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast

Copyright 2017 by Megan Marshall

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-544-61730-8

Acknowledgments for permission to publish previously unprinted material and to reprint previously published material can be found on .

Cover design by Jackie Shepherd

Cover photograph by Josef Breitenbach The Josef and Yaye Breitenbach Foundation, courtesy of the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson

e ISBN 978-0-544-61842-8
v1.0117

for Emily

and for Scott,

then and now

Every living human being is a biographer from childhood, in that he perpetually studies the souls of those about him, detects with keen and curious thought the resemblances and differences between those souls and that still more present and puzzling entity, his own, and weighs with the most anxious care the bearing and effect of others thoughts and actions upon his own life.

GAMALIEL BRADFORD , Confessions of a Biographer, 1925

SESTINE, SESTINA. A very elaborate measure invented by the Provenal poet Arnaut Daniel, imitated by Dante and other Italians, tried inexactly by Spenser, and sometimes recently attempted in English.

GEORGE SAINTSBURY , Historical Manual of English Prosody, 1910

SESTINA French. Syllabic. Thirty-nine lines divided into six SESTETS and one TRIPLET , which is called the envoy. The poem is ordinarily unrhymed. Instead of rhymes, the six end-words of the lines in stanza one are picked up and re-used in a particular order, as end-words in the remaining stanzas. In the envoy, which ends the poem, the six end-words are also picked up: one end-word is buried in each line, and one end-word finishes each line. Lines may be of any length.

The order in which the end-words are re-used is prescribed in a set pattern.... What the numerological significance of the set is, however, has evidently been lost since the Middle Ages, though the form is still a popular one.

LEWIS TURCO , The Book of Forms, 1968

CHAPTER 1: BALCONY

: Elizabeth Bishop at six months, baby book photo. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Great Village postcard, ca. 1910s. George A. Shepherdson to H. B. Shepherdson. From the Bulmer Bowers Hutchinson Sutherland family fonds, 1997.002.I.i.23. Courtesy of Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University.

: Gertrude Bulmer Bishop, date unknown. From the Bulmer Bowers Hutchinson Sutherland family fonds, 1997.002.II.i.48. Courtesy of Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University.

: Elizabeth Bulmer and William Brown Bulmer on verandah of Bulmer family home, Great Village, Nova Scotia. Photograph ca. 1920s. From the Bulmer Bowers Hutchinson Sutherland family fonds, 1997.002.II.i.95. Courtesy of Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University.

: Elizabeth Bishop on beach at Spencers Point, Nova Scotia. Photograph ca. 1921. From the Bulmer Bowers Hutchinson Sutherland family fonds,1997.002.II.i.102. Courtesy of Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University.

: Una Layton Frances, Grace Bulmer Bowers, Maude Bulmer Shepherdson, and George A. Shepherdson. Photograph ca. 1910s. From the Bulmer Bowers Hutchinson Sutherland family fonds, 1997.002.II.i.57. Courtesy of Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University.

: Snapshot from Camp Chequesset (BishieMikeHappyBuddyBrownie). Courtesy of the Esther Merrell Stockton Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Staff photograph of the Blue Pencil, 1929. Courtesy of Walnut Hill School for the Arts.

: Elizabeth Bishop, Vassar College yearbook, 1934. Courtesy of Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Drawing of birds on the roof by Elizabeth Bishop, from letter to Donald Stanford, April 5, 1934. Courtesy of Donald E. Stanford Papers, Special Collections, Louisiana State University Libraries.

CHAPTER 2: CRUMB

: Margaret Miller, ca. 1937. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Marianne Moore, 1935, by George Platt Lynes. Courtesy of Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., LC-USZ62-101955. Copyright the Estate of George Platt Lynes.

: Elizabeth Bishop passport, 1936. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Louise Crane and Elizabeth Bishop, ca. 1937. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Louise Crane and Elizabeth Bishop in Paris, ca. 1937. Courtesy of Louise Crane and Victoria Kent Papers, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

: Marjorie Stevens and Pauline Pfeiffer Hemingway at Caroline Shop. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Portrait of Elizabeth Bishop by Loren MacIver. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library. Estate of Loren MacIver, courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York.

: Robert Lowell. Photographer and date unknown. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, Robert Lowell Papers, MS Am 1905 (2859).

: Elizabeth Bishop at her desk in the Poetry Office, Library of Congress, ca. 194950. Courtesy of Office of Communications, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

CHAPTER 3: COFFEE

: House at Samambaia, date unknown. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Lota with large fish, Cabo Frio, date unknown. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Elizabeth Bishop swimming at Samambaia, date unknown. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Elizabeth Bishop on patio at Samambaia, date unknown. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: May Swenson, 1954. Photograph Erich Hartmann, Magnum Photos.

CHAPTER 4: RIVER

: Elizabeth Bishop with Aldous Huxley and Laura Archera Huxley, Samambaia, ca. 1958. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Laura Archera Huxley touring a Uialapiti village, ca. 1958. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Landing at Gurup on the Amazon, ca. 1958. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

: Lilli Correia de Arajo, date and photographer unknown.

: Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop on beach in Rio de Janeiro, 1962. Photograph by P. Muniz. Courtesy of Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, from Robert Lowell Papers, series III, box 21, folder 12/13.

: Flamengo Park, Rio de Janeiro, ca. 1966. Photograph by Marcel Gautherot. Courtesy of Instituto Moreira Salles Collections.

: Elizabeth Bishop with Lota de Macedo Soares and Lilli Correia de Arajo, Ouro Prto, ca. 1960s. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.

CHAPTER 5: MIRACLE

: Ouro Prto house under renovation, ca. 196566. Courtesy of Elizabeth Bishop Papers, Special Collections, Vassar College Library.