Elizabeth Bishop

Bishop’s childhood was a period of financial comfort but emotional hardship and loss. His father, a successful contractor, died when Bishop was just eight months old. Following this loss, his mother’s mental health deteriorated, and she was admitted to a mental hospital in 1916; Bishop never saw her again.

Effectively orphaned at an early age, Bishop first lived on a farm in Nova Scotia, Canada, with his mother’s family (this region would later feature frequently in his works). He was later forced to move in with his father’s wealthier family in Massachusetts. This move left him feeling unhappy and lonely; the chronic asthma attacks that would plague him for the rest of his life also began during this period. His introduction to literature came through his aunt, who took charge of his education. In 1929, she enrolled at Vassar College with the dream of becoming a composer, but due to stage fright, she gave up music and turned to English literature. There, she co-founded Con Spirito, a rebellious literary magazine, with writer Mary McCarthy, and graduated in 1934. After graduation, an inheritance allowed her to travel and focus entirely on writing. In 1946, her first poetry collection, North & South, was published, and this book opened the doors to the literary world for her. The support and guidance of Marianne Moore, a renowned poet of the time, played a major role in Bishop’s early career. A trip she took to South America in 1951 became one of the turning points of her life. In Brazil, she met the architect Lota de Macedo Soares, and what was intended to be a short vacation turned into a 15-year stay in Brazil that lasted until Soares’s death in 1967. Bishop’s years in Brazil were extremely productive, both in terms of personal happiness and artistic output. She translated the works of Brazilian poets such as João Cabral de Melo Neto into English. After Lota’s death, Bishop returned to the United States and began teaching at Harvard University.