By: Sammy-Jo Skipper

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Elizabeth Bishop

• By Sammy-Jo Skipper

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Elizabeth Bishop

• Born on Feb.8, 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts.
• Had a difficult childhood.
• Father died of kidney disease on Oct.13, 1911
  when she was only 8 months old.
• Mother was committed to the Nova Scotia mental
  institution in 1916 and died there in May 1934.
• Elizabeth went to live with her grandparents in
  Nova Scotia and never seen her mother after she
  had been committed.
• From 1927 to 1930 she went to Walnut Hill School,
  a boarding school in Natick, Massachusetts.
• Went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York
  in 1930 and majored in English.
• She earned a bachelors degree in 1934.

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Elizabeth Bishop Con'd

• From 1935 to 1937 she traveled to France, Spain,
  North Africa, Ireland and Italy.
• She then settled in Key West, Florida for 4
  years.
• Descriptions of her travels and the scenery are
  in her poetry.
• She was influenced by poet Marianne Moore who was
  a close friend, mentor and stabilizing force in
  her life.
• Her poetry focuses on her impressions of the
  physical world.
• In 1964 she was awarded the fellowship of the
  Academy of American Poets.
• From 1966 to 1979 she served as a Chancellor.
• She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Oct.6,
  1979. She was 68 years old.

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My Response

• I think that Elizabeth Bishops poems reflect her
  life and her travels. By reading Elizabeths
  poems you can pretty much tell that she had a
  hard childhood and that she was moved around a
  lot. I agree with the critics when they say that
  Elizabeth Bishops poems reflect all her travels
  and the way that she sees the world around her.
  The intellectually challenging thing for me was
  trying to understand what she really meant when
  she was using all the metaphor's in her poems.
  Once I read about her life and what she went
  though I understand that all the metaphors are
  really just her way have putting her life into
  nicest words. The aesthetically appealing thing
  that I found in Elizabeths poems was the fact
  that she could take something so horrible such as
  her childhood and make it into something
  beautiful in her poems. I really liked
  Elizabeth's poems after I read about what her
  life was like. I think that in order to really,
  truly understand what her poems mean and how they
  relate to her and where she has been, you really
  have to read about her life and then image her
  thinking about that every time she sits down to
  write a poem and then they will understand her
  poems and where she is coming from. In
  conclusion, just about everybody agrees that
  Elizabeth Bishops poems reflect her travels and
  the way sees the world around her.

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My Imitation Poem

• We are caught,
• Like a fish in a bucket,
• An ant in a jar.
• Where do we go?
• What do we do?
• Than we are freed,
• Like a fish in the ocean,
• An ant in a field.
• Where do we go?
• What do we do?

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Explanation Of My Poem

• My poem imitates Elizabeth Bishops poem
  SonnetCaught because its on the topics of
  being caught and being freed which is the same
  topics Elizabeth Bishops poem.

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Reference List In APA Format

• (1997-2005).Elizabeth Bishop. The Academy of
  American Poets. Retrieved December 6, 2005 from
  the http//www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/
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• Elizabeth Bishop. Retrieved December 7, 2005
  from the http//www.uvm.edu/sgutman/Bishop. html