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Essay / Analysis of poetry in Elizabeth Bishop personal. Bishop, however, was better known for her insistence on staying out of this movement. To be called a confessional poet “would have horrified the very proper and obsessively discreet author” (Gioia 19). She seemed to express the opinion that tragedies in a poet's mind should not be found on the page. As Bishop once said of confessional poets, “You wish they would keep some of these things to themselves” (Costello 334). Despite her beliefs, Bishop's personal life was so marked by tragedy and alienation that she sought a way to express her experiences through her work. Poetry, especially during this period of total lyrical exposure, became the perfect way for her to overcome her pain. His peers had set the standard for public reception of such personal poetry, and Bishop sought to use their idea of personal reclamation in his own, much more subtle, way. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay It is important to recognize both the slight commonality and distinct difference between Bishop and the confessional poets. Confessional poetry “often dealt with topics that had not been openly addressed before in American poetry. Private experiences and feelings related to death, trauma, depression, and relationships were addressed in this type of poetry, often in an autobiographical manner” (“A Brief Guide”). Given this, we see a connection between Bishop and other confessional poets. Despite his desire to become known outside the denominational canon, his work lends itself in one way or another to the expression of personal experiences and emotions. The difference is that Bishop extends beyond the label "confessional" largely by using formal poetic techniques to acknowledge and overcome her personal pain. She uses many formalist forms, particularly narrative tone and understatement, to express private experiences in a rather subtle and personal way. Through her use of these techniques in the poems "In the Waiting Room" and "One Art", we can see how Elizabeth Bishop's use of personal experience goes beyond the confines of "confessional poetry" and aims more at reconcile the feeling of loss within her. life. “In the Waiting Room” is a poem that reads like a personal story from the point of view of a young girl. Here we see a child who, while waiting for her aunt in a dentist's office, has a revelation about her gender identity. Bishop presents this poem as a scene, giving immense detail from the exact location – “Worcester, Massachusetts” – to the time of year – “It was winter.” It gets dark early” (Mgr 159). This prose-like narrative suggests that Bishop is telling us a story, probably about herself, as she gives the speaker her own name. If we consider this poem as autobiographical, we can then understand that there are two points of view: there is the point of view of the young Elizabeth and that of the adult, and these two points of view have the function of reconciling Bishop's sense of identity. This is a poem about a child learning what it means to live in the world as a woman, as well as an adult using that memory to come to terms with her current female identity. While the child is sitting inin the waiting room, reading a National Geographic book with photos of tortured women, she begins to question the identity she once believed she had: "But I felt: you are a me, you are an Elizabeth, You’re one of them.” (Bishop 160). She refuses to consider herself as one of these women, because to become a woman is to become the other, the oppressed. Her fears are reinforced when the magazine describes the violence against these "black, naked women" from the outside. The world connects to her own world - as she hears a cry of pain coming from her aunt in the dentist's office (Bishop 159). She finally sees that the constituents of the gender she must accept are “only one,” a diminished and oppressed group of women; she feels like she is drowning under the “great dark wave” of responsibilities that coincide with being a woman. As Bishop recalls this memory, we can see how the narrative tone of this work functions as a way to reconcile acceptance of her with her. own identity. While examining the incident as a story, she is able to disconnect from the experience. She is able to declare that she is no longer that terrified young girl who fears being marginalized, but rather a grown adult who defies being "a stupid, shy woman" by expressing her emotions through her art (Bishop 160). As an adult woman, she experienced firsthand these responsibilities that young Elizabeth found to be terribly oppressive and harsh. Now that she has lived as a woman and written about her personal anxieties, Bishop is able to accept the inevitability of her role in society. She is able to move forward in her life, just as the poem, in its final stanza, depicts the world that evolves after the girl's epiphany. "One Art", if examined in the context of Bishop's life, is certainly a much more personal and heartbreaking art poem than anything else in its cache. Published in her book Geography III in 1976, “One Art” was written after Bishop left Brazil – supposedly the only place she could ever call home – and after her ex-lover Lota de Macedo Soares or committed suicide. In the wake of these events, it's not hard to imagine "One Art" as a way for Bishop to come to grips with the recurring sense of loss in his life. This poem is “typically arch in its restraint, formality and classicism. Yet...deals openly with loss and has rightly been called...painfully autobiographical. » (McCabe 27). We see through his repetition a sort of rationalization of the tragedies of his life. By combining the loss of "a continent" and one's lover with things as trivial as "lost door keys" or "an hour misspent," Bishop attempts to marginalize his own pain over these losses (Bishop 178 ). A reader familiar with Bishop's loss can easily see the ironic disregard for the pain she expresses through the lines "- Even if I lost you (joking voice, a gesture I love), I wouldn't have lied . » (Bishop 178). In her offhand way, she uses these euphemisms to force the pain of loss – and by extension her own pain – to become much less meaningful. Bishop also brilliantly uses the strict formality of this type of villanelle poem to work with. through his emotions. It seems that the fixed form traps the pain in the poem, forcing it to be recognized and “mastered” in order to move forward (Bishop 178). Yet the subtle beauty of Bishop's technique lies in what Kathleen Spivak has done. calls it “a surprising irregularity” and how “Bishop, a perfectionist, singled out the metrical break” as “significant and deliberate” (Spivak 507)..
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