Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

1939,—again, the emphasis seems a bit wrong. I had friends in N Y and in Key West. Loren MacIver, the painter, and her husband, Lloyd Frankenberg, stayed with me in K W, and through Loren I met the Deweys. Leave out Mrs. Hemingway here — we were closer friends in the later ’40s.

1951—Academy Award earlier — a year before Bryn Mawr, I think, or 1 in the spring, other in the fall.

1952. Lota’s name is Maria Carlota Costelat de Macedo Soares, no accent marks. But you don’t need all that, just Lota de Macedo Soares. You could say “stopped over to visit friends in Brazil” (I had others beside Lota — I met several Brazilians in N Y during the war) “Had a violent allergic reaction to cashew fruit and had to give up trip to the Straits of Magellan.” That is what actually happened. I hate “ill” and think it sounds too mysterious, or neurasthenic. (See Chap 1, p 16, for the same thing. Couldn’t you say there that I had asthma and bronchitis? Except for asthma, a hereditary tendency, I am really very healthy, and I think it is better to come out and say what ails one rather than give the impression one is a hypochondriac, or perhaps a dope-fiend …)

1952—“short stay” in N Y, rather than a “visit”. I still feel like a New Yorker. I kept my garret in N Y all the time I was in Florida, too — so I could get back whenever I wanted to. I would now if I could afford it—

1961—yr. I went to the Amazon 1st (I’m going again next month). But I have traveled some almost every year I’ve been there.

1962—Chapelbrook Fellowship

1964—Book on architecture comes 1st; I worked on it in 1956. I wish you’d skip the translations. They amount to next to nothing, no real work, and no real interest. Or just say I have translated some prose & some poetry, from the Portuguese. I can’t be considered a cultural go-between, nor do I want to be. The fact that I live in Brazil seems almost entirely a matter of chance … perhaps not, but that’s the way it seems to me.

QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL is coming out in October, with Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Houghton Mifflin is bringing out a re-print (paper back) of the 1st 2 books, about now. Chatto and Windus is also bringing out another collection this year or next.

I am working on a book of prose pieces about Brazil, — places, mostly, with a bit on baroque churches, popular music, one or two life-stories, — maybe. This will be done in about a year or 18 months. At present I am using the title BLACK BEANS AND DIAMONDS:

Petrópolis, this time — but Rio is the best

address these days—

November 14th, 1965

Dearest Anne:

You have been hiding your light under a bushel — at least as far as I knew. I am very much impressed with your book and think some of it is wonderful, and all good, and that you have enormous talent. Although I’d like to have seen some of these before, I also think you’re wise to spring the whole book on people like that because it does make much more of an effect. and also shows character, patience, etc. — & patience particularly seems to be a necessary ingredient in writing poetry …

I hope you haven’t been expecting to hear from me long before — I did stay in Minas for over two months to buy a completely unnecessary house, but a beauty — but this is a secret for a while, please. I’ll tell you all about it later. Lota kept forwarding batches of letters she thought were important, but she didn’t send books or magazines, etc., and then at the end she kept a lot of letters because I meant to leave, couldn’t get a plane for a week because of the weather, etc. Your books (I got 2) had been unwrapped, so I don’t know when they were mailed to me. So I’m sorry if I have been indifferent or impolite—

I hadn’t any idea you could write such good poetry and it is such a nice surprise — however, I would have thought you’d write careful & beautiful poems, if you did write them — I just never dreamed of the number or the really high quality. It has really cheered me up a great deal when I rather needed a little cheering, too. I like very much: To My Daughter in a Red Coat, (the last three lines are lovely); Fairy Tale; The Traveller (almost best of all, I think — more later); Nightmare in North Carolina; and the title poem — and lots of others, too, but those are my favorites so far. Why haven’t I seen them, I wonder — well — I get Poetry but don’t always read it carefully I’m afraid — and I used to get Paris Review but finally let it stop — and the others you acknowledge I don’t see — that’s why.

The Fullbright Prof. of American Lit. in Rio this year was so much taken with “The Travellers” he wants to put it in an anthology he and Donald Justice (?? — I think — someone fairly well-known) are doing. His name is Mark Strand — you’ll probably be hearing from him. He borrowed my 2nd copy to study and might like more poems. Also — while I’m on this promotion paragraph — Ashley Brown, one of the founders, and an advising editor still, on SHENANDOAH, thinks he would like to see some chapters of your book on me and perhaps — if Twayne agrees — one could be used in that magazine. It’s Ashley Brown, 921 Gregg St., Columbia, South Carolina, 29201—if you want to write him. I have just sent him your address, too, so probably you’ll hear from him, if you’d rather wait. He was the Fullbright Prof. here last year and we saw a lot of him — very intelligent — I may have mentioned him — I went to Bahia and Ouro Prêto, etc. with him — an excellent traveler. That would be a good place to send some poems, too, I think — send them c/o him Shenandoah & mention me —but then it is better, I suppose, to tackle the more famous ones first — Partisan, N Y Review of Books, Kenyon, or Hudson, etc. — or the New Yorker. (As you know perfectly well.)

“Harvard” is another one I like very much, too. “Winter”, too — particularly the first stanza, very beautiful, I think. I realize I know much more of you now, reading that little note at the end, than I ever did before. (And you know so many boring and unnecessary things about me!)

I brought some letters up with me to answer today but don’t seem to have one from you among them — and I’m not at all sure I really answered your last, that I received in Ouro Prêto, or not. I’ll see when I get back Tuesday. And I’ll try to write again soon. Such a lot of things accumulated because I stayed away so long. I am going to Seattle in January, or the end of December, to be a poet-in-residence for two terms — I’ve been shilly-shallying about this for a long time but finally made up my mind to mostly because I need the money to remodel my house! (1720–30—) supposed to have a treasure buried in the walls — well, I’ll write you about it and send you a picture, too.

This is just to thank you very much for your book and to tell you I really like it very much and am deeply impressed. The poems are all honest and careful and yet have great feeling, I think — I trust them completely! I’m just sorry they didn’t make a prettier book for you. Well, mine, that you may have received by now, is a bit too pretty, I’m afraid. I don’t really like the drawing of me on the back, either — but publishers always insist so on photographs, and if not a photograph of one smoking into one’s typewriter, a collection of mis-leading blurbs — so I decided this was more impersonal, since it doesn’t look much like me, and also would please a lot of Brazilian friends. I’m afraid you’ll find the contents only too familiar, and also very thin — it should be twice the size.

It is so beautiful here I can’t imagine why I want another house. (Well, to save it, for one thing — it’s falling down) — I think Mark would find my view almost Chinese in the ancient way — cascade and waterfall to the right, covered rocks, semi-tropical trees, and a lot of blue agapanthus lilies to the left — all seen through a very fine rain today.