Haynes 1

Sophia Haynes
English II Block One
Mrs. Pritchard
21 March 16
Elizabeth Bishop and Relations
Elizabeth Bishop lived a life full of deaths and losses, all of which affected her being.
She was born in Massachusetts on February 9, 1911, and from a young age, she had to learn how
to cope with her struggles. Elizabeth was the daughter and only child of William Thomas Bishop
and Gertrude Bishop but ended up losing both at a young age. After both deaths, she went to live
with her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia and afterwards went to live with her aunt and
uncle outside of Boston. She never had a stable home and environment, many of which caused
health problems at a young age. Therefore she would miss school a lot, and she would use this
free time to read, write, and become familiar with poetry. Elizabeth Bishops interpersonal
relationships affected her writing.
Losing a mother and father at a young age is quite grieving and devastating. Bishop had
to deal with the loss of her father due to kidney disease. Her mothers reaction to the death
caused her to go psychotic and breakdown, and she was led to a hospital and asylum when
Gertrude Bishop died. She started losing important relationships at a young age, and losing
plenty of relationships was something she had to get used to. In One Art, she talks about how
losing things was never difficult for her because she was used to it. She says, I lost my mothers
watch. And look! my last, or / next-to-last, of three loved houses went. / The art of losing isnt
hard to master (Bishop 10-12). Primarily, she lost her parents, but having to shift from home to
home, caused instability in her life. She was always moving and going everywhere, leaving

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people she had once known and loved. It has become somewhat of a trend and tendency for her
to lose things, and nobody should have to bear so much early in life. She had to deal with her
parents death, unstable homes and health at a young age. Because she has had to go through that
at such a youthful age, she wrote about dealing with it. Not only was it therapeutic, but also
writing was a way to tell her story. It was as if her writing was the only stability she had in her
life, and something she simply had control over. She was moved around from place to place,
having no say in what she was doing, but with her writing, she had that voice. Bishop's writing
was something she could have and do to provide that security and assurance in her life. However,
Bishop would not have been as successful as she was, without the help of her friends.
Bishop had several friends that helped her have such a successful career like Marianne
Moore, Robert Lowell, and Louis Crane. Crane assisted Bishop financially and helped get her
papers and writings published. In Letter to N.Y. by Elizabeth Bishop, she says, nevertheless
Id like to know / what you are doing and where you are going (Bishop 23-24). Bishop watches
out for Louis, and she even writes this poem to show how much she cares. Bishop always had a
big heart and seemed to care for each of her loved ones tremendously. In the poem, she said,
taking cabs in the middle of the night, / driving as if to save your soul/ where the road gose
round and round the park / and the meter glares like a moral owl (Bishop 5-8). For many
people, a calming mechanism is to drive around, especially late at night when thoughts become
too overwhelming. Driving can sometimes just clear the mind, and create peace. In these lines of
the poem, she seems to write about Crane struggling with her thoughts, and that could be what
was influencing the poem in the first place. She uses this set of writing to check up on her friend
because she knows what it is like to struggle. In her writing, she wrote about several people to
show her love. Another close friend, Robert Lowell, praised Bishops work and was a huge fan

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of all of her work. Lowell invited her to teach English at Harvard, and that is where she ended up
working for a portion of her life. Lastly, Marianne Moore was very influential in Bishops life,
and they met when Bishop was attending Vassar. She got Elizabeth to give up her medical
dreams, and become a writer because she felt as if Bishop had the knowledge, talent, and writing
skills to go far. Moore instantly became one of Bishops biggest mentors and helped teach her to
strive for what she is most capable of. If it were not for Moore, Bishop might not have been
successful as she was, especially when it came to writing and publishing her work.
Elizabeth Bishop was a lesbian and very passionate about feminism and spreading the
awareness of feminism. She acknowledged the beauty in feminine and ended up having many
women love interests in her life. Her most valuable and important love interest was the
relationship she had with Lota Soares. In Close, Close All Night, a poem written by Elizabeth
Bishop, she states, 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 (Bishop 1-12) In this poem, Bishop talks about a
relationship where both partners can read each other better than anyone. They are fit so perfectly
together that they know each other completely, and are able to express their emotions quite
clearly. Bishop seems to be talking directly about Lota because their relationship was healthy in
the beginning. Soares ended up declaring her love for Bishop, and the feelings were mutually
returned. They lived together in a house in Brazil and came to love the country, culture, and
people there. They two were very happy with each other, and they sincerely did love each other.
They had a healthy connection, and they both helped each other in sufficient amount of ways,
especially mentally. In The Breakfast Song by Bishop, she says, Today I love you so / how
can I bear to go / (as soon I must, I know) / to bed with ugly death / in that cold, filthy place, / to

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sleep there without you (Bishop 6-11). She talks about how when she is with Lota she is happy,
and nothing can change that moment there with her love. When they are separated, she cannot
bear to sleep without her. Suddenly the atmosphere becomes suffocating, and she cannot breathe.
Soares made sure to help nurse Bishop back to health; however, Soares quickly became
distracted due to a big project she was finishing up. She failed the project, and it ended up
hurting her mental health. Soares was diagnosed with arteriosclerosis, and she started drinking
heavily to mend the pain. The doctors thought that the best way to improve things was for the
two of them to be separated from each other. Soares ended up overdosing, and she died from
suicide. Because of the death of Soares, Bishop had to learn once again to mend the pain.
Elizabeth talks about what happened after the death of Lota in her poems. In the poem
The Breakfast Song, she also says, Nobody wants to die; / tell me it is a lie! / But no, I
know its true (Bishop 15-17). It is hard to accept the fact that the person you loved wanted to
die and felt no need to live anymore. Not only that, Soares suffered the instability their
relationship had become to form. Everything became too overwhelming, and it ended up getting
the best of her. In One Art by Bishop, she says, Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture /
I love) I shant have lied. Its evident / the art of losings not too hard to master / though it may
look like (Write it!) like disaster (Bishop 16-19). These were the last few lines in the poem, and
it seemed to be as if it was the last straw. Things were becoming too much and too
overwhelming, and she lost her love. She acts like it is no big deal when she is most likely saying
that to make herself feel better. It is like she has no expectations or hope that something will stay
permanent, and she seems to be talking directly to her readers at this point. Do not hold on to
something because nothing lasts forever. She has had to get used to losing things left and right,
and losing these things faster than other people usually have to deal with.

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The more relationships that ended, the more it affected her life geographically. In her
writing, one could see that change. In the poem, One Art, she says, Then practice losing
farther, losing faster: / places, and names, and where it was you meant / to travel. None of these
will bring disaster (Bishop 7-9). Once she started losing people, she would start losing the
places that had some kind of connection to those certain relationships. She had to leave
Massachusetts once both of her parents died, had to leave several places like Nova Scotia to live
with other family members in whom she would grow another relationship with, and she had to
leave Brazil once Lota passed away. She goes on to say in the poem, I lost two cities, lovely
ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent (Bishop 13-14). Each place
would have a certain connection to each relationship. She would write about living in these
certain places with these certain people.
All in all, each relationship influenced Bishops writing. She wrote about multiple
experiences with these people, and it gives a clear representation of how it affected her and the
outcome of it. Losing her mother, father, and love interest, pushed her to write about how losing
them was not hard to bear with because she had gone through it too many times previously to be
phased by it. She wrote about the way she felt whenever she was with Lota Soares, and how her
love for her was unique and beautiful. Having friends like Crane, Lowell, and Moore lead her to
a path of success because each motivated her writing in different ways. Without each of these
people, she would not have been the same writer. Her writing gave her that voice, stability, and
she used it to write about these relationships.

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