Biography of Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on February 8, 1911. Elizabeth was the only child of William T. Bishop and Gertrude May (Boomer) Bishop, both of Canadian ancestry. In Elizabeth’s early years, she spent parts of her childhood with her Canadian grandparents after her father’s death on October 13, 1911, and her mother’s death in May 1934, while living in an institution for her breakdowns. Elizabeth’s grandparents lived in Nova Scotia in a town called, “Great Village”. Then Elizabeth lived with the other grandparents in Worcester, Massachusetts for awhile when she was six or seven until she started getting sick with asthma, eczema, and other ailments, and then she went to live with her mother’s older sister in Boston.

Out of her experiences there came the short story “In the Village” and the very fine poem “First Death in Nova Scotia”. Elizabeth was welcomed into her relatives’ arms after her parents died, but Elizabeth felt like a guest when she was living with them. Elizabeth’s childhood was not only living back and forth between the grandparent’s homes, but had somewhat a ruff childhood. She probably didn’t have many friends, and in the back of her mind she really didn’t feel safe, nor did she feel comfortable with staying from place to place. In 1927 to 1930 Elizabeth attended Walnut Hill School, a boarding institution in Natick, Massachusetts, where she published apprentice writings in The Blue Pencil, the school’s literary magazine. In the fall of 1930, Elizabeth became a freshman at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she majored in English literature. While attending college Elizabeth had many relationships with men, but nothing had come to terms on marriage.

At that point in her life she was a lesbian, and continued to write poetry in her college years about herself and her family. When Elizabeth graduated in June 1934, she moved to New York City, determined to make her way as a writer. Elizabeth’s first book publication in 1936, with a group of her poems with an introduction by Marianne Moore, appeared in Trial Balances, an anthology that showcased the work of many young writers. Marianne Moore was a good friend of Elizabeth’s. Then a decade would pass before she would publish a volume of her own poetry. In 1937, Elizabeth discovered Key West, and she enjoyed it so much that she moved there in January that following year. In 1942 in New York, Elizabeth met Lota de Macedo Soares, a young Brazilian woman of aristocratic background, who would become the love of Elizabeth’s life. Elizabeth never married anyone through her years of living.

She did not have any children to support. The type of job that Elizabeth had was writing poetry about her and the life that she was living. In the year 1946, Elizabeth published the first of four volumes of her poetry, North and South. Also in the year of 1966 in January, Elizabeth accepted a teaching position at a University of Washington in Seattle. In Elizabeth’s last years and legacy, Elizabeth traveled to South America and Europe and taught at many Universities. She was inspired by many poets and young writers. Elizabeth’s fourth and last collection won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

 Elizabeth died in Boston of a cerebral aneurysm, on October 6, 1979. Elizabeth was only sixty-eight years old when she died. Elizabeth’s poems were the best known poems that they have remained standard anthology pieces. Elizabeth was popular with a wide variety of audiences from around the world. Elizabeth also went through a great deal of criticism about her life when she was growing up, and through the poetry that she had written. Elizabeth had her ups and downs though. What I mean by this is that she couldn’t find a place where she belonged, but she managed to move around to find her inner self. Elizabeth did find herself through her poetry, and well she accomplished a lot in her life from childhood until the day she died. Elizabeth received many awards for her poetry throughout her years, and I think she was peaceful at the end of her life.


Work cited

www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bishop/about.htm
www.poemhunter.com/elizabeth-bishop/biography
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