Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishopwas an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth8 February 1911
CityWorcester, MA
CountryUnited States of America
dream baby islands
Dreams were the worst. Of course I dreamed of food and love, but they were pleasant rather than otherwise. But then I'd dream of things like slitting a baby's throat, mistaking it for a baby goat. I'd have nightmares of other islands stretching away from mine, infinities of islands, islands spawning islands, like frogs' eggs turning into polliwogs of islands, knowing that I had to live on each and every one, eventually, for ages, registering their flora, their fauna, their geography.
dream fall sleep
But he sleeps on the top of his mast with his eyes closed tight. The gull inquired into his dream, which was, "I must not fall. The spangled sea below wants me to fall. It is hard as diamonds; it wants to destroy us all.
dream real men
Bishop on "At the Fishhouses"At the last minute, after I'd had a chance to do a little research in Cape Breton, I foundI'd said codfish scales once when it should have been herring scales. I hope theycorrected it all right.2Quite a few lines of "At the Fishhouses" came to me in a dream, and the scene- whichwas real enough, I'd recently been there-but the old man and the conversation, etc.,were all in a later dream
dream car dangerous
The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do so many a dangerous thing.
dream our-dreams
Oh, must we dream our dreams and have them, too?
dream song fall
I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, Of some song sung to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow! There is a magic made by melody: A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep To the subaqueous stillness of the sea, And floats forever in a moon-green pool, Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
book sleep heart
Close, close all night the lovers keep. They turn together in their sleep, Close as two pages in a book that read each other in the dark. Each knows all the other knows, learned by heart from head to toes.
home thinking long
Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed home and thought of here? Where should we be today?
body way sun
What childishness is it that while there's breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around?
people democracy world
Democracy in the contemporary world demands, among other things, an educated and informed people.
children grandmother house
Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.
writing doe written
I've never written the things I'd like to write that I've admired all my life. Maybe one never does.
book pages fingertips
Open the book. (The gilt rubs off the edges of the pages and pollinates the fingertips.)
sorry writing people
I am sorry for people who can't write letters. But I suspect also that you and I ... love to write them because it's kind of like working without really doing it.