Bishop Symposium attracts scholars, poet’s devotees

With an encyclopedic collection of her papers stashed away in the basement of the Library and a series of stone benches lining the path to the All Campus Dining Center engraved with her poems, Elizabeth Bishop '34 has left her mark as one of Vassar's most celebrated alumnae/i. In addition to marking Vassar's sesquicentennial, 2011 is also the poet's own centennial, resulting in much celebration from Bishop's editors, scholars and fans. In conjunction with the Special Collections display of her papers in the Thompson Memorial Library, on Sept. 24 Vassar hosted a symposium commemorating the life and career of this former U.S. Poet Laureate.

Bishop Scholars and enthusiasts flocked to Taylor Hall last Saturday to hear those who knew Bishop speak candidly about her work in two panel discussions. The first panel, entitled "On Editing Bishop," was moderated by Hartwick College Professor of English Thomas Travisano, and focused specifically on scholars' experiences with editing Bishop's work. Along with panelist Saskia Hamilton, Travisano is the co-editor of the book Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Vassar Professor Emeritus of English Barbara Page moderated the second panel, "On Teaching Bishop," in which poets and professors recollected their experiences with Bishop in the classroom as well as their personal interactions with her. The panelists included former Vassar professor Lorrie Goldensohn, Vassar graduate and Goucher College Professor of English Elizabeth Spires '74, and current George Washington University Professor of English Jane Shore.

Bishop, as they collectively recalled, was uncommonly modest about her work. Spires, who interviewed Bishop for a 1979 issue of the Vassar Quarterly, noted, "She had this reticence in terms of talking about certain kinds of things. She didn't want to talk about her writing and she didn't want to talk about herself as a writer."

"What I remember is that she was doing a reading at Skinner Hall [in the Spring of 1979] and she read for about 20 minutes and then she started to leave," said Page. "She sheepishly asked ‘Is that enough?' The house was absolutely jam-packed, and there was a rumpus saying, ‘No, no, come back.' You could see she was about to seep away again, and the audience had to cheer her on. But it was a wonderful reading."

Despite Bishop's modesty, her work continued to earn her notable repute in the academic arena, ultimately allowing her the opportunity to teach at Harvard University in the early 1970s. Shore first met Bishop after graduating from the MFA program at the University of Iowa. A poet herself, she received a grant to write and lecture at Radcliffe College at the same time that Bishop was teaching writing classes at Harvard. After learning about Bishop's poetry workshop, Shore asked if she could audit Bishop's lectures.

"As a teacher, she was very different than what I had before," noted Shore. "She was not about herself. On the first day of class, when we all walked in, she said, ‘I really don't know how to teach poetry, so I asked my friend W.H. Auden what to do, and he said to teach metrics—meter and rhyme.' The only think that I could think was, ‘Her friend Auden?!'"

"She wasn't a great teacher," Shore later admitted, "I don't think that she had much interest in it. I think that she had a genuine affection for people, but I think it was a bit of a chore for her."

Despite her lackluster classroom experience, Shore later went on to develop a close working relationship with her, ultimately citing Bishop as a mentor. Her poem dedicated to Bishop, "A Luna Moth," was directly inspired by Bishop's technique of projecting emotions on natural landscapes and was read before the panel.

It is this modest, confessional technique, the panelists agreed, that has made Bishop an oftentimes deceptively easy poet to study in the classroom. While discussing Bishop's method, Spires insisted that students need guideposts to pinpoint emotional undercurrents in her poetry. Despite the subtle complexities of her poems' messages, Bishop's diction has ensured that her work will continue to be taught.

"She found this sweet spot in the American language, where she doesn't use erudite diction and she doesn't go down to the vernacular and the colloquial very much at all. But she has this sweet spot that is just poised with such tremendous elegance, right there in the middle, that makes it so available for those reading her works," noted Goldensohn.

The day's events continued with a reading by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, who presented a poem commissioned by the College to commemorate Bishop's legacy. In addition to this, Special Collections proudly announced the acquisition of a new collection of Bishop's papers, including recently discovered notebooks and over 270 pages of her correspondences with Lota de Macedo Soares and Alice Methfessel. "There is a lot of new material, and we are especially happy to be announcing this on the occasion of this conference," noted Head of Special Collections Ronald Patkus. "As you know, the topic of this conference is ‘From the Archive: Discovering Elizabeth Bishop,' and we want to highlight the ways that students and scholars can use the material. We are so happy that on this occasion, we have another resource to provide students who want to discover Bishop."

Undoubtedly, Bishop has secured her station in both the literary and academic realms, and with its unprecedented collection of her papers and notebooks, Vassar will continue to draw attention from both Bishop scholars and admirers.