Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive

Hicok, Bethany

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.11649332

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Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive

Bethany Hicok 2020

Open Access

In a life full of chaos and travel, Elizabeth Bishop managed to preserve and even partially catalog, a large collection—more than 3,500 pages of drafts of poems and prose, notebooks, memorabilia, artwork, hundreds of letters to major poets and writers, and thousands of books—now housed at Vassar College. Informed by archival theory and practice, as well as a deep appreciation of Bishop’s poetics, the collection charts new territory for teaching and reading American poetry at the intersection of the institutional archive, literary study, the liberal arts college, and the digital humanities. The fifteen essays in this collection use this archive as a subject, and, for the first time, argue for the critical importance of working with and describing original documents in order to understand the relationship between this most archival of poets and her own archive. This collection features a unique set of interdisciplinary scholars, archivists, translators, and poets, who approach the archive collaboratively and from multiple perspectives. The contributions explore remarkable new acquisitions, such as Bishop’s letters to her psychoanalyst, one of the most detailed psychosexual memoirs of any twentieth century poet and the exuberant correspondence with her final partner, Alice Methfessel, an important series of queer love letters of the 20th century. Lever Press’s digital environment allows the contributors to present some of the visual experience of the archive, such as Bishop’s extraordinary “multi-medial” and “multimodal” notebooks, in order to reveal aspects of the poet’s complex composition process.

ISBN(s)

978-1-64315-011-6 (paper)
978-1-64315-012-3 (open access)

Subject

Citable Link

1971 letter from Frank Bidart to Elizabeth Bishop in which he tells her of his experience of reading "In the Waiting Room" as he eats his meal in the Hermit Hamburger.

Letter from Bidart to Bishop, 1971

From Chapter 1

Bishop's first typewritten draft of "In the Waiting Room" has extensive handwritten annotations.

First Draft of "In the Waiting Room"

From Chapter 1

Bishop's annotated first draft of "In the Waiting Room."

The cover of the National Geographic Magazine from February of 1918 doubles as its table of contents with a list of its four featured stories: "The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, National Geographic Society Explorations in the Katmai District of Alaska," "Helping to Solve Our Allies' Food Problem," "Billions of Barrels of Oil Locked Up in Rocks," and "Shopping Abroad for Our Army in France."

National Geographic Cover, Feb. 1918

From Chapter 1

The cover of the National Geographic magazine from February of 1918.

A young boy wearing a tie and dress shirt grooms a large pig at a state fair.

"Grooming a Pig," National Geographic

From Chapter 1

This article by Ralph Graves encourages American children to support the war effort by raising pigs.

A panorama photograph shows the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes with several mountains dramatically wreathed in volcanic smoke.

"Valley of 10,000 Smokes"

From Chapter 1

The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Alaska, which was explored by a National Geographic team in 1916.

Winston Churchill

From Chapter 1

Winston Churchill poses in front of the Egyptian pyramids, 1898.

Draft of "Blue Postman" featuring the lines "I love you / for scientific reasons / the transference is perfect / I've given you my past / all".

"Blue Postman" notebook draft excerpt

From Chapter 2

An excerpt from a page of Bishop’s notebook with a draft of “Blue Postman.” (VC 75.3; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Notebook excerpt featuring lines from "Geographical Mirror" (GM) images and language that later appear in "Cape Breton" ('the little calf that bawls"). ""A Summer's Dream" ( "dwarfs, giants") and "At the Fishhouses" ("Description of the dark, icy, clear water"; "My idea of 'knowledge'"; "Half-drawn, half-flowing from a [canceled] great rocky breast").

Notebook excerpt with images used in "Cape Breton," " A Summer's Dream," and "At the Fishhouses."

From Chapter 2

Page from Bishop’s notebook featuring images that would later be used in “Cape Breton,” "A Summer's Dream," and "At the Fishhouses." (VC 75.3, p. 115; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Excerpt from letter to Dorothee Bowie in which Bishop comments on her guilt feelings about her mother's mental illness and death, the mental illnesses of Robert Lowell and Lota de Macedo Soares, and the 19th-century mental health reformer Dorothea Dix. She asserts to Bowie that "queer, drunk, and all the rest, I am sane."

Excerpt from 1970 Bishop letter to Dorothee Bowie

From Chapter 2

A passage from Bishop’s June 14, 1970 letter to Dorothee Bowie. (VC 27.5; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Image shows beginning of story called "The River-Rat." At top right, Bishop inscribes the following in blue ink: "Collaboration by Pauline H. & me one hot summer in K.W.--not very good!" The phrase not very good is underlined.

Excerpt from "River Rat" draft

From Chapter 3

Part of the first page of the second draft of Bishop’s unpublished short story "The River-Rat."

Black and white photograph of Elizabeth Bishop and Alice Methfessel standing outside side by side.

Snapshot of Methfessel and Bishop

From Chapter 4

Bishop and Methfessel met in 1970 at Harvard, where Methfessel worked as a secretary. The women were partners until Bishop’s death in 1979. (snapshot 1972; photographer unknown; VC 100.16; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Selection of a typed letter from Elizabeth Bishop to Alice Methfessel, with many messy handwritten collections.

Typed letter from Bishop to Methfessel

From Chapter 4

Bishop’s typed letters to Methfessel are full of corrections, additions, and postscripts; the “messier” quality of these letters reveals a level of openness and spontaneity that Bishop had with few, if any, of her other correspondents. (Bishop to Methfessel, February 16, 1971, VC 114.32; Courtesy of Vassar College)

A colorful kitten sticker at the top of a letter from Elizabeth Bishop to Alice Methfessel with the typed words "Yucky, isn't it?" alongside.

Bishop letter to Methfessel with "yucky" sticker

From Chapter 4

Stickers like the one at the top of this letter are an untranscribable element of the love letters that convey an understanding of the correspondents’ playfulness and tenderness. In a typical move, Bishop self-consciously comments on the sentimentality of the sticker with “yucky, isn’t it?” (Bishop to Methfessel, 11 Feb 1971, VC 114.29; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Hotel stamp

From Chapter 4

Bishop and Methfessel frequently exchanged ephemera and clippings in their letters. Many of these tokens—such as this hotel stamp—were very small, which exemplifies Susan Rosenbaum’s notion of Bishop as an archivist constructing a “miniature museum.” (Hotel Stamp, VC 116.32; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Swenson uses a series of repeated tight squiggles to represent the switchbacks on the Riviera corniches.

Squiggle from Swenson letter to Bishop

From Chapter 5

From a letter, handwritten while traveling in France. Swenson includes a minutely drawn representation of the switchbacks on the Riviera corniches.

Typewritten draft of prose poem "The Fairy Toll-Taker."

Draft page of "The Fairy Toll-Taker"

From Chapter 6

Draft of “The Fairy Toll-Taker,” recto. (VC 53.1; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Draft page of "The Fairy Toll-Taker"

From Chapter 6

Draft of “The Fairy Toll-Taker,” recto. (VC 53.1; Courtesy of Vassar College)

A notebook page from Bishop's transcriptions of blues lyrics of the 1930s and 40s where she copied lines from Blind Boy Fuller's 1936 "Evil Hearted Woman." Bishop places several question marks in this rendering, betraying a halting confidence about words and phrases.

Notebook Page with "Evil Hearted Woman"

From Chapter 7

Bishop copied “Evil Hearted Woman” by Blind Boy Fuller into her notebook. (VC 74.12.1; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Page one depicts two black servants, a mother and son, unsuccessfully attempting to clean pots and pans for the household.

Sapolio Ad, Image 1

From Chapter 7

Page one of the advertising leaflet for Sapolio soap, an extensively advertised brand popular in the 1930s, where the visual grammar of blackness/dirt and whiteness/cleanliness unfolds over the panels. The image overlaps with page three of the booklet. (VC121.19; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Page two shows the "Modern Household Fairy" arriving with a bar of Sapolio Soap for the white woman of the house. Page three shows the two black servants joyously and now successfully cleaning the pots and pans. The black maid can now see herself in the clean mirror as she gazes into it.

Sapolio Ad, Images 2-3

From Chapter 7

Pages two and three of the Sapolio soap advertising leaflet. (VC121.19; Courtesy of Vassar College)

Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive

Table of Contents

Resources

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Keyword

Creator

Format

Year

Letter from Bidart to Bishop, 1971

First Draft of "In the Waiting Room"

National Geographic Cover, Feb. 1918

"Grooming a Pig," National Geographic

"Valley of 10,000 Smokes"

Winston Churchill

"Blue Postman" notebook draft excerpt

Notebook excerpt with images used in "Cape Breton," " A Summer's Dream," and "At the Fishhouses."

Excerpt from 1970 Bishop letter to Dorothee Bowie

Excerpt from "River Rat" draft

Snapshot of Methfessel and Bishop

Typed letter from Bishop to Methfessel

Bishop letter to Methfessel with "yucky" sticker

Hotel stamp

Squiggle from Swenson letter to Bishop

Draft page of "The Fairy Toll-Taker"

Draft page of "The Fairy Toll-Taker"

Notebook Page with "Evil Hearted Woman"

Sapolio Ad, Image 1

Sapolio Ad, Images 2-3