Speech introducing the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop

My fellow students and writers, welcome. The honour of speaking to you, the poets of the future, has been bestowed upon me and I swear I allow not disappoint. As Stephen Spender once verbalise I diswhitethorn I cannot make an amusing speech as I study that all geniuses are devoid of humour. Today I will be speaking some peerless of the capaciousest female poets of the twentieth century, and angiotensin-converting enzyme of my own personal favourites, Elizabeth Bishop. Theres nothing more embarrassing than being a poet really.The words of this modest poet convey the shy hidden qualities of a fair sex who was spectacular in being unspectacular. Bishop was never preoccupied with the obsolescent appraisal of being a poet. This gave her a sincerity that transposed to her verse line in expressing the emotional journey that was her life. Her poetry echoes a life well lived with extremes of emotion from the joy of heightened awareness, to abject isolation and depression. Elizabe th Bishop was born in America in 1911. Her father died shortly after her birth and at the age of tailfin Bishop lost her m some some other to mental illness.These harsh lessons of life, so early learned, unexpended a void in Bishops life, the void of a settled agreeable family. Her rime Filling Station explores the themes of love and family which depicts her longing to be loved and to belong. The poetry describes a family living amongst the oil and dirt of a filling station. At first she dismisses the filthy place Oh but it is dirty But as in much of her poetry Bishop looks beyond the obvious to find a beauty and home boundaryss within all the dirt. In this verse she comes to the terminus that Somebody loves us all.This short sentence has gained the power of a dictum for me in my life and Im sure it will h of age(predicate) resonance with some(prenominal) of you too. This comforting thought, wise and true, shows how Bishop reveals the truth through her close observation o f the light things in her quest for self-discovery. Bishops original way of viewing situations is also lapse in her rime The Prodigal. Have you ever wondered what happened to the prodigal son during his offense from home? Well Bishop did in this clever poem which focuses on the last(a) part of the prodical sons life.This effectively simple poem describes mankinds need for companionship, she herself being a self-proclaimed outsider. As an outsider Bishop led a very unsettled diligent life described as desperately and energetically nomadic. She once give tongue to All my life I have lived and behaved very much wish the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents. Here Bishop confesses of a great desire to travel, discernibly in search of the home she never had. Bishop wrote the poem Questions of Travel which depicts the clock time she spent in Brazil.Although it was a place of immense beauty, she often matt-up separate and outside of it. She a sks Should we have stayed at home wherever that may be? which shows Bishops great l wizardliness in searching for belonging. In this poem she also questions the human need to travel to strange foreign places. It foregrounds the set off of whether the tourists quest stems from an innocent desire to savour landscapes of difference or whether it capability have a darker motive, resembling the imperialistic desire to conquer and acquire other lands.She then asks if it is childishness that causes us to rush to see the sun the other way around. More humorously this poem signifies the limitations of human knowledge and sense of foreign cultures. After all are we not all hangdog of inwardly complaining of the intrusive tourists that plague our country annually? Bishop asks Is it properly to be watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theatres? and Bishops argument promoting the merits of travel will banish the negative thoughts of even the nearly xenophobic among us.I feel many will enjoy the representation differences conveyed in this poem as Bishop is so wry and honest about the differences between locals and tourists. A striking photographic quality of images is atypical of Bishops poetry. Her poem The Fish uses language that is imagistic and precise in describing the confrontation between an amateur black cat and a tremendous battle-worn fish. The poem is rich in imagery, simile and metaphor and uses layering of images which describes in intricate detail the newly caught fish.Bishop is an empathetic imaginative observer as she describes the fish inside and out down to The dramatic reds and blacks of his shiny entrails, and the pinko swim bladder like a big peony. The final line until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow And I let the fish go describes a moment of epiphany and revelation parking lot to Bishops poetry. Bishop pronounces a merciful verdict on the life of the venerable old fish which contrasts strongly with mans attempt to co nquer nature. This moral poem is one to think about the next time you go fishing.My favourite poem by Elizabeth Bishop is First Death in Nova Scotia. The full complexity of puerility is effectively evoked in this simple poem about the finis of her cousin. This is a poem we can all relate to as it captures a childs first control of death. Although written in her fifties, Bishop manages to capture the confusion she matte as she attempted to understand the finality of death. This poem has quite a chilling quality which echoes the wrong sequence death has taken in extinguishing the life of a child.The final stanza, although chilling, is one of my favourite pieces of poetry. The vulnerability and fear created as the child doubts the presence of an afterlife is true of my experience of death and Im sure others. The child Bishop asks But how could Arthur go clutching his tiny lily with his eyeball shut up so tight and the roads deep in snow? This final line filled with poignancy is a complete example of Bishops simple but effective style. Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying superstar should rejoice in the beauty, the joy and the wonder of life the less said about lifes sores the better.However, Bishop manages to do both successfully in her striking and classifiable poetry that will give much pleasure for years to come. Her poetry covers topics from death to family and from travel to morality. Her keen eye for detail, her accurate observations and her simple, concise definition of the world around us makes Elizabeth Bishops poetry an animated read. Her poetry boasts authenticated feeling which originates from her own harsh experiences in life and often expresses a greater understanding of life and death.Her pleasing style makes her poetry a firm favourite among many amateur writers and poetry lovers. I hope I have instilled in you today the joys of recital the poetry of one of the most influential females of the last century. I will now get around you with a fi nal quote from Elizabeth Bishops poem called Poem. This poem maps the readers experience of reading poetry, from indifference to recognition of a common humanity. Life and the memory of it cramped, dim, on a piece of Bristol board, dim, but how alive, how touching in detailthe micro that we get for free, the little of our earthly trust