Poetry Discussion with Janet Krauss: The Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop (Zoom)

Please join us online on Tuesday, January 6, at 10:30 a.m., when Janet Krauss will lead a discussion of a selection of poems by Elizabeth Bishop. Links to the poems and discussion questions will be emailed in advance of the program. 

There is no charge for this program. Advance registration is required as is an email address. Register online to receive the Zoom session invitation link. 

“Bishop accomplished a magical illumination of the ordinary....,” David Lehman observed, and the reader absorbs this in the poet’s depiction of woods, fishing villages, a bus ride “on red gravelly roads.” Bishop remains unique as a poet who both painted village scenes and then probed them as a poet with the precision of her words as she connected with seen and unseen people she imagined or actually knew. Elizabeth Bishop gained well deserved respect and appreciation as one of our important American poets after her books were published and after her death in 1979. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1955.

Elizabeth was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts. She spent her childhood here as well as in Nova Scotia, first with her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia and then with her paternal grandparents in Worcester. She developed a strong sense of place as an adult during her many travels. However, Nova Scotia vividly settled in her mind. She also lived for 14 years in Brazil with her lover who committed suicide. This tragic end added to the fact that Elizabeth’s mother committed suicide. And Elizabeth’s father died when she was 5 years old. She sought solace in her poems and paintings. These pictures and poems reveal “a struggle to find a sense of belonging,” as someone expressed. We will explore that sense of belonging in her poems.

Janet Krauss, who has two books of poetry published, Borrowed Scenery, Yuganta Press, and Through the Trees of Autumn, Spartina Press, has recently retired from teaching English at Fairfield University.