Speech introducing the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop

My fellow students and writers, welcome. The honour of speaking to you, the poets of the future, has been bestowed upon me and I hope I exit not disappoint. As Stephen Spender in one case said I fear I cannot make an amusing speech as I read that on the whole geniuses are devoid of humour. Today I will be speaking close to one of the greatest female poets of the ordinal century, and one of my own per tidingsal best-loveds, Elizabeth Bishop. Theres nothing more embarrassing than be a poet really.The words of this modest poet convey the shy hidden qualities of a woman who was spectacular in organism unspectacular. Bishop was never preoccupied with the old idea of being a poet. This gave her a sincerity that transposed to her numbers in expressing the emotional journey that was her life. Her poesy echoes a life well(p) lived with extremes of emotion from the joy of heightened awareness, to abject isolation and depression. Elizabeth Bishop was born in the States in 1911. Her fat her died shortly after her birth and at the old age of five Bishop lost her mother to mental illness.These harsh littleons of life, so archeozoic learned, left a void in Bishops life, the void of a colonised loving family. Her metrical composition Filling Station explores the themes of love and family which depicts her longing to be love and to belong. The verse form describes a family living amongst the oil and dirt of a woof station. At first she dismisses the filthy place Oh but it is dirty only if as in untold of her verse line Bishop looks beyond the obvious to take chances a beauty and homeliness within all the dirt. In this poem she comes to the conclusion that Somebody loves us all.This short sentence has gained the power of a proverb for me in my life and Im sure it will hold tintinnabulation with many of you too. This comforting thought, wise and true, shows how Bishop reveals the truth through her close musing of the little things in her quest for self-disco very. Bishops original way of viewing situations is excessively clear in her poem The Prodigal. Have you ever wondered what happened to the prodigal son during his transgression from home? Well Bishop did in this clever poem which focuses on the lowest part of the prodical sons life.This effectively simple poem describes mankinds need for companionship, she herself being a self-proclaimed outsider. As an outsider Bishop led a very dubious restless life described as desperately and energetically nomadic. She once said All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents. Here Bishop confesses of a great desire to travel, discernibly in search of the home she never had. Bishop wrote the poem Questions of Travel which depicts the time she spent in Brazil.Although it was a place of immense beauty, she frequently felt separate and outside of it. She asks Should we have stayed at home wherever that may be? which shows Bishops great loneliness in searching for belonging. In this poem she also questions the human need to travel to strange contrary places. It foregrounds the issue of whether the tourists quest stems from an innocent desire to savour landscapes of difference or whether it might have a darker motive, resembling the imperialistic desire to conquer and raise other lands.She then asks if it is childishness that causes us to rush to see the lie the other way around. More humorously this poem signifies the limitations of human obtain and understanding of foreign cultures. After all are we not all guilty of inwardly complaining of the intrusive tourists that plague our country per year? Bishop asks Is it right to be watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theatres? However Bishops argument promoting the merits of travel will banish the negative thoughts of regular(a) the most xenophobic among us.I feel many will have intercourse the theatrical differences co nveyed in this poem as Bishop is so wry and reasonable about the differences between locals and tourists. A smash photographic quality of images is irregular of Bishops rime. Her poem The Fish uses language that is imagistic and precise in describing the confrontation between an inexpert fisher and a tremendous battle-worn fish. The poem is rich in imagery, simile and fable and uses layering of images which describes in intricate degree the newly caught fish.Bishop is an empathetic imaginative beholder as she describes the fish inside and out down to The dramatic reds and blacks of his bright entrails, and the pink swim bladder like a big peony. The lowest line until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow And I let the fish go describes a moment of epiphany and apocalypse common to Bishops poetry. Bishop pronounces a merciful verdict on the life of the time-honored old fish which contrasts strongly with mans attempt to conquer nature. This moral poem is one to think ab out the next time you go fishing.My best-loved poem by Elizabeth Bishop is First Death in Nova Scotia. The full complexity of childhood is effectively evoked in this simple poem about the death of her cousin. This is a poem we can all relate to as it captures a childs first experience of death. Although written in her fifties, Bishop manages to capture the mental confusion she felt as she attempted to understand the finality of death. This poem has kind of a chilling quality which echoes the wrong sequence death has taken in extinguishing the life of a child.The final stanza, although chilling, is one of my favourite pieces of poetry. The vulnerability and fear created as the child doubts the presence of an afterlife is true of my experience of death and Im sure others. The child Bishop asks But how could Arthur go clutching his particular lily with his eyes shut up so tight and the roads enigmatical in s at a time? This final line filled with poignancy is a perfect example of Bishops simple but effective style. Oscar Wilde is quoted as verbalise One should rejoice in the beauty, the joy and the wonder of life the less said about lifes sores the better.However, Bishop manages to do both successfully in her striking and distinctive poetry that will give much pleasure for long time to come. Her poetry covers topics from death to family and from travel to morality. Her keen eye for detail, her accurate observations and her simple, elliptical description of the world around us makes Elizabeth Bishops poetry an animated read. Her poetry boasts genuine feeling which originates from her own harsh experiences in life and lots expresses a greater understanding of life and death.Her pleasing style makes her poetry a firm favourite among many amateur writers and poetry lovers. I hope I have instilled in you today the joys of reading the poetry of one of the most influential females of the last century. I will now leave you with a final quote from Elizabeth Bis hops poem called Poem. This poem maps the readers experience of reading poetry, from indifference to recognition of a common humanity. Life and the fund of it cramped, dim, on a piece of Bristol board, dim, but how alive, how touching in detailthe little that we get for free, the little of our earthly trust