Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

I am interested to hear that you were a friend of John Dewey. My father is a philosopher — C.L. Stevenson, he wrote a book on Ethics called Ethics and Language and is to give the Alfred North Whitehead lectures here in May — who has the same quality of humility and honesty … no Transcendentalist, however. You ask about me. Yes, I am doing some part time teaching at the Cambridge School this year, but I am not going to continue after the summer. Mark (Elvin) is my second husband; (Caroline is my daughter by a first disastrous marriage) we were married only last November, having known each other only a month or so. He is an Englishman, historian, sinologist, linguist, brilliant and sensitive but not very well. His eye for painting and for contemporary music (he also is fond of Webern) is much better than mine, and he tells wonderful stories from Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Summerian mythology to Caroline. She adores him. I studied the cello when I was at college as an undergraduate at Michigan and I still play in string quartets when I have time. Both my sisters are violinists and my father is a fine pianist. Caroline is affectionate, beautiful, passionate and vain. I have some fears regarding her future, but many of these are motherly imaginations I think. That will give you some idea of who I am. I suppose I really think of myself as a poet. I send you these because they seem to me to “follow” you to a certain extent. I read your poems for the first time only last winter. Thank you so much again, for your patience and help.

Caixa Postal 279, Petrópolis

Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

August 24th, 1963

(in Rio)

Dear Mrs. Elvin:

Thank you for your note of August 14th — I’m in Rio at present it just reached me here yesterday. I’m sorry your first letter got lost — I believe I did warn you! I’m glad you got the DIARY and I have also written Brandt & Brandt to send you copies of the poems they have on hand — I am not sure how many, but they’re most of the next book. (If one called EXCHANGING HATS appears, please omit.) Since the last book is 8(?) years old, I think you should see some later poems.

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. ButThat stay in Washington still remains a nightmare to me and my life there mercifully totally unlike most of the rest of it!

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.—