Elizabeth Bishop Triumphs over Grief - Loss and Longing Through Her Poetry

Elizabeth Bishop Triumphs over Grief, Loss and Longing through her Poetry

Grief is a profound and emotional affliction caused by a loss, whether it is physical, emotional, or mental. Elizabeth Bishop was all too familiar with grief as she experienced several profound losses not only at an early age, but in later years as well, which was clearly evident in her poetry. The two people who are the closest to most people growing up are a mother and father. Unfortunately, the young Elizabeth lost her father to death at a very early age and then she lost her mother due to a mental condition. Through the years, when Bishop was to be molded into a young woman, her parents were not there for her. During most of her life, she was forced to succeed on her own with no one to guide her other than her grandparents. The concept of grief has been accepted by Bishop. She has deplored the loss of dear loved ones, childhood, happiness, fame, love and life in general. Elizabeth Bishop's poems, "One Art", "The Prodigal", and "The Fish" are perfect examples of how Bishop deals with grief, loss, and longing throughout her poetry. She finds the strength to overcome the obstacles that she has encountered through diction, rhyme, and poetry itself. The poetry of grief is a genre in itself when referring to Bishop because she had to overcome many trials and tribulations. Bishop's grief is immediately attributed to the sudden losses of close loved ones, burdened with an uncontrollable absence, and is often pursued by darkness, pain, and depression. In this paper I plan to closely examine how the fight to find a sense of acceptance in society, and the human proficiencies that Bishop had to encounter through grief and longing, not only affect the person that she is, but also affect the writing of her poetry.

Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "One Art," is a piece that speaks volumes when dealing with a sense of loss. "One Art" is a villanelle and from what I have learned, a villanelle is in verse form functioning on two rhymes that usually consist of five tercets and a quatrain. This basically means the poem consists of six stanzas, where the first five stanzas are three lines and the sixth stanza is four lines.

Bishop expressed a feeling and emotion that turned up quickly after the loss of loved ones in her poem, "One Art". Even though, Bishop was extremely young when she lost the two most influential people in a person's life, I believe she always remembered her father and mother subconsciously. When the young Bishop was old enough to grieve, she used her poetry to express the feelings that were suppressed in her mind. Bishop writes, "The art of losing isn't hard to master" (1) in the opening line of the poem, "One Art". The ongoing repetition of this phrase is seen throughout the poem, which leads me to believe how far and fast that Bishop had to lose. Bishop was forced to grow up fairly quickly in order to grieve the loss of not only family, but friends as well. Bishop almost became accustomed to losing loved ones that it became a routine to her.

Poetry was a substantial part of the grieving process for Bishop, which sometimes is not easy to speak and refer to. Robin Riley Fast writes in the journal article, A daughter's Response: Elizabeth Bishop and Nature, "The central fact of Bishop's early experience is the loss of her mother, beginning when Elizabeth was eight months old, and becoming permanent with her mother's institutionalization when she was six". Therefore, the notion of loss is a term that has been favored by Bishop. This is not only evident in this particular poem, but the poems that will be discussed later on as well. "One Art," for the most part embraces feelings and emotions that can devastate those who have suffered a loss. Bishop compares the loss of two materialistic objects, when she states, "I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or/ next to last, of three loved houses went" (10-11). I believe Bishop seemed less willing to accept the loss. Her voice is extremely flippant and nonchalant about the ease with which things get loss. Bishop seems almost relieved by these losses because they were the objects of bad memories.

Many people like I would not be able to cope as well as Bishop had if a watch, three houses, two cities, and a lover had been lost. Bishop writes, "I lost two cities, lovely ones (13). I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster" (15), which would be extremely hard for someone like myself to physically, mentally, and emotionally handle. But, Bishop had already faced many trials and tribulations in her life, that no loss was greater than the next one for her. "One Art" shows the pain and sadness Bishop was faced with even though she made light of every situation in the poem.

Bishop concludes "One Art" by writing, "even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture/ I love) I shan't have lied" (16-17). Bishop is referring to the suicide of her lover. The quote shows that grief employs a simple metaphor, "the art of losing's isn't hard to master" (18), which can also serve as an understatement as the opposite. I believe that Bishop is stating that we grow and progress beyond the little losses. Once Bishop seemed to feel secure in her life, she losses the one important person that she grew so close to. She must make "(Write it!)" (19) because the only way to overcome the disaster is to write and express her feelings and emotions. "(Write it!)" (19) is a command Bishop uses to express her loss through the art of poetry. Those two words appear to be so simple, but they serve as such a big lesson and extremely difficult task for Bishop, but she must hold on to hope because that is all she has during the grieving process.

Elizabeth Bishop's poem, "The Prodigal" is a double sonnet which consists of two stanzas of fourteen lines each. The original title was "The Prodigal Son", but Bishop chose to omit "son". At first I thought there was no other way to read and interpret this poem other than referring to alcoholism, but as I re-read "The Prodigal," I looked at it from a perspective that Bishop used her alcohol to try and cover up her grieving for so many losses that she was faced with in her lifetime. The Prodigal: Elizabeth Bishop and Alcohol by Brett C. Miller is an article that goes hand in hand with Bishop's poem. Miller states, "But Bishop's first mention of her own drinking places it at the 'age/ of twenty or twenty one'" (55). The first mention of her drinking came at the time when she was just old enough to consume alcohol. It seems as if she held all of her pain and sadness in up