Poetry Jam 2020: Elizabeth Bishop
Feb. 29th, 2020 07:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Our reading selection for this month is Elizabeth Bishop's Geography III. Can't wait to see what you all think about this collection.
March: Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife
April: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese
May: Sandra Cisneros' My Wicked Wicked Ways
June: Carl Sandburg Honey and Salt
July: Mascha: The Poems of Mascha Kaléko
August: Shakespeare's sonnets
September: W. D. Snodgrass' Not for Specialists
October: Toi Derricotte's Tender
November: Franny Choi's Soft Science
December: Pablo Neruda's The Heights of Machu Picchu
March: Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife
April: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese
May: Sandra Cisneros' My Wicked Wicked Ways
June: Carl Sandburg Honey and Salt
July: Mascha: The Poems of Mascha Kaléko
August: Shakespeare's sonnets
September: W. D. Snodgrass' Not for Specialists
October: Toi Derricotte's Tender
November: Franny Choi's Soft Science
December: Pablo Neruda's The Heights of Machu Picchu
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Date: 2020-02-29 01:04 pm (UTC)"Crusoe in England"--I like this but would like it better if I had read Robinson Crusoe and had more context for why his safe life at home has no more meaning for him. It captures the way coming home can be a let down beautifully.
"Night City"--fantastical description of an aerial view of the city
"The Moose"--rhyme is unobtrusive, not juvenile at all, and disappears into the poem. Excellent sense of place, attention to setting and the natural world.
"12 O'Clock News"-- so clever. This one of my favorites in the collection. I love her imagining her writing desk as a country and all the objects on it artifacts of or denizens of this country. Nice to have some light humor along with commentary on the nature of writing and the writer.
"Poem"--again, sense of place, regional and familial identity, legacy
"The End of March"--this is my other favorite in the collection; Love that fantastic image of the sun as a lion who'd walked the beach before them
"Objects & Apparitions"--this poem is a translated Octavio Paz poem. Here's an example of Joseph Cornell's work: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/187694
"Five Flights Up"--the masterful turn this takes at the end. "Yesterday brought today so lightly! / (A yesterday I find almost impossible to lift.)"
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Date: 2020-02-29 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-29 05:41 pm (UTC)I can't wait to see what you come up with. :)
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Date: 2020-03-01 12:50 am (UTC)And Robinson Crusoe was sad, I agree. I mean it's hard for anyone used to adventure to return to an ordinary life and grow old.
The Moose was interesting in terms of the rhyme. It was, as you say, very subtle. So I liked the poem more for the structure than what it was talking about.
"One Art" is, maybe, the classic modern villanelle, so it sets the standard.
Thank you for posting the link about Joseph Cornell. That makes it a lot easier to understand what's going on.
The last poem is very nice, too. She has a nice way of describing ordinary moments and making profound statements about them almost offhandedly.
That's the word I'd use with a lot of it. Offhandedly. Of course that's just the way it comes across. I know it was very planned and carefully crafted. But it's sort of domestic, daily, ordinary, but very observant and insightful.
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Date: 2020-03-01 01:15 pm (UTC)I didn't say anything about "One Art" because I've already talked about it in my post about villanelles, but it's 100% a classic for a reason.
I agree with you about "Waiting Room." It did not grab me, but it's one of her most frequently anthologized poems, which is odd to me.
I agree about the observation of the mundane. She's very gifted in creating meaning out of very ordinary circumstances.
Something I read about her said she is one of our most important poets, but she actually published very little compared to other poets, which is interesting to me.
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Date: 2020-03-01 02:03 pm (UTC)Sadly, I cannot do the Duffy unless I buy her collected works. Worth it?
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Date: 2020-03-01 02:34 pm (UTC)IDK about Duffy; she will be new to me as well. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful there.