Entries from L I T T O R A L | the journal of the Key West Literary Seminar tagged with 'Elizabeth Bishop'
Quite Delightful Rather than Frightening
The 5 pm update on Tropical Depression Three shows the forecast models in agreement. Among the little joys of life in the subtropics are the less-than-serious storm events the hurricane season can bring. Above, you see Tropical Depression Three,...
Bipolar Alien: James Tate @ KWLS 2010
Stuart Krimko's close reading of James Tate's "The Cowboy" explores Middle American Surrealism, the conditioned reflex of laughter in crowds, and modern isolation through a fun-house lens in which Tate's work shares space with Elizabeth Bishop's "Crusoe in England."
Dear Miss Moore / Royal Poinciana
The Royal Poinciana trees have just begun to set out their flowers. By the end of the month, the entire canopies will be full of the bright red or orange blossoms. Elizabeth Bishop was 26 years old when she...
From the Nets
Men with Jewfish, Key West, ca. 1935. From the Dale McDonald Collection, via the Monroe County Public Library on Flickr Today's haul from the deep: • Jewfish, Amberjack, or Black Drum? Carol Frost takes a look at Elizabeth Bishop's Key...
The Trouble with Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens
"Robert Frost was on the beach this morning and is coming to dinner this evening." So did Wallace Stevens write to his wife Elsie in February of 1935 from the Casa Marina, a hotel on the Atlantic Ocean where he spent part of each winter in Key West for nearly 20 years. Frost and Stevens today are broadly acknowledged as literary peers, but in 1935 the two poets' reputations were leagues apart. Frost had won the Pulitzer Prize twice, while Stevens had published only a single volume, <em>Harmonium</em>, more than a decade earlier. While Stevens had earned the approval of influential readers including <em>Poetry</em> editor Harriet Monroe, Frost was not among them, once complaining that he didn't like Stevens's work "because it purports to make me think."
Richard Wilbur: 1993 <br>A Reading in Tribute to Elizabeth Bishop
The 1993 Key West Literary Seminar, devoted to the work of Elizabeth Bishop, featured a series of readings-in-tribute. In this recording, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Wilbur reads Bishop's "Little Exercise." Originally published in her debut 1946 collection <em>North and South</em>, the poem ostensibly describes a thunderstorm "roaming the sky" over the mangrove islands, boulevard, herons, and sleeping indigents characteristic of Key West, a place each poet called home. Wilbur also reads his translation of "Song," by Vinícius de Moraes, the Brazilian poet and Bossa Nova pioneer who was the songwriting partner of Antônio Carlos Jobim for many of João Gilberto's hits.
Elizabeth Bishop Recordings Coming Soon
We will soon begin to release audio recordings from our 1993 Seminar devoted to poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). The event was organized by John Malcolm Brinnin, a friend of Bishop's since the 1940s, and brought together many of Bishop's...
Hurricane Ike; What would Elizabeth Bishop do?
That's Hurricane Ike at 7:45 this morning, as close as he'll come to Key West. Elizabeth Bishop knew how to react to storm-events such as this. In her letters from Key West, she writes of "fringes of hurricanes," and "a small tornado ... nothing of any consequence." She knew to play it safe, as well we should until Ike has certainly passed. In the untitled poem which follows, a twenty-something Elizabeth adumbrates the significant pleasures to be found indoors in such a storm:<
Robert Giroux & John Malcolm Brinnin
The New York Times is reporting today on the death of Robert Giroux. Reproduced below is a letter Giroux wrote to John Malcolm Brinnin, a friend and correspondent of Bishop's, and the organizer of that year's Seminar.
1993: Elizabeth Bishop
The 1993 Seminar, our eleventh annual, was dedicated to the work of Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). Among the panelists were John Malcolm Brinnin, Octavio Paz, Robert Giroux, James Merrill, and Richard Wilbur. In cooperation, The Key West Art & Historical Society put on the first-ever exhibition of Elizabeth Bishop's paintings, curated by William Benton, who at that time was working on <em>Exchanging Hats</em> (1996). The exhibit of Bishop's paintings also featured the photographs of Rollie McKenna, including several portraits of Bishop. In conjunction with the Seminar, Bishop's former home at 624 White Street, was added to the national register of Literary Landmarks.
John Ashbery on Elizabeth Bishop: 2003
In response to a panel discussion titled Poets and Their Work: Poetry as Its Own Biography (personal I vs. poetic eye), John Ashbery delivers a "mini-lecture" on so-called confessional poetry and the work of Elizabeth Bishop. At the conclusion...
James Schuyler is the Villain of this Piece
Key Westers bemoan change. You should've seen it twenty years ago. You should have seen it last week. But look far enough, and you'll see we've made a habit of proclaiming ruin. Still, it's better here than not, and...
Elizabeth Bishop Has Slimmed Down
You love everything written by Elizabeth Bishop. You own all the Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux editions, the trusty coral-colored Poems, the sea-foam-green Prose, and the Bible-sized Letters. You've got the tizzy-causing uncollected, Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box. But...
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