Elizabeth Bishop and Her Poems Essay

Elizabeth Bishop was not just a simple poet for me during her time. Her family background contributes to her life and career in a significant manifestation. Because she was not raised by her own parents, she used to perceive things in a broader knowledge – accepting everything that she has despite of her parents’ incapability of nurturing and loving her as she grows up. This is what I like about Bishop. Despite of her shortcomings and emptiness in some part of her being, she tried to perform better in her lifetime that gave her different achievements and recognitions in the literary world. Her life during her childhood when she used to go to different relatives because her father died while her mother was hospitalized taught her how to adjust to different people and knowing them at the same time. She knew that her relatives especially her aunt loves her so much, more than what she expected but she still seek for the love of her parents. For the reason that she could not obtain the love that she wanted, she makes herself busy to many things that she thought would help her to become a better person even if her parents are not around her. The way she was not raised by her own parents and could not able to give her the strength in everything she does manifests during her college days when she could not pursue her dreams in music for she is afraid to face the crowd. Through writing, she found herself successful behind her narrators or characters in her poems. In writing, she was not afraid to face her readers for she would just write and let her readers feel her through her poems. As a reader, I can probably say that I can feel her personality because of the way on how she attacked her poems during her point of views and the way she related fiction to reality is the most considerable things why I admired her. Aside from the fact that I liked her because she is a woman like me, I ca relate to many things that happened to her like losing her parents at an early age. I also love the way she writes her poems. As she focused most of her poems on nature, she illustrates the reality within it. Through reading her poems, we can see how much our modern period and nature have changed from then to now. In this case, we could be able to relate what the history tells us and how would these aspects recount to our modern world. It is an important point of attack because the readers would have the power to describe the past and acknowledge it in the present situation of the society and nature. The most significant poems that are close to my heart are Bishop’s poems entitled â€Å"The Map† and â€Å"Florida†. As I read these two poems, it reminds me of many things in life. It gives me the knowledge on how to perceive life in a positive way despite of all the odds within my journey. Because I know that life is a never-ending journey and responsibility, I have learned how to take each day as one step as a time to what I believed and my purpose in living. Critical Essay Elizabeth Bishop’s poem entitled â€Å"The Map† is about the description of the difference between the historian and map-makers in terms of their way of tracking the geographical event and scenario between the North and the West. The author describes profoundly the setting where beautiful things emerge. There are no negativities within the poem. Everything looks good. That is why as the readers read this poem they would feel the goodness of history and reality at the same time. The author showed and described abundant images and elements to show the life of the poem. Even if there are some disputes between the historians and the map-makers, the author did not show the negativities within it. As an irony of the poem, she used positive images and elements to show the problem within it. It was like the character of the author. Bishop can be said as the narrator of her poems. Even if she felt bad, she would hide it in front of many people showing the good things within her while she hides the dilemmas in her life. Another significant thing that we need to consider in this poem is the femininity of the poem. The author used feminine images and elements that showed the essence of being a woman. Some of the images that exist in this poem are lovely bays, peninsulas, yard-goods, and glass. Lovely bays signify beauty and keenness, peninsulas signifies curve or silhouette of a woman, yard-goods signifies femininity, and glass signifies fragility of a woman. These images can be seen as a formation of a woman as men define them whom to be the historians and map-makers. It means that men created women as what the bible showed that women came from the piece of men through the conception of Even from Adam. Like the poem â€Å"The Map† the poem entitled â€Å"Florida† is a free-verse poem or much of the acknowledgement as prose-poetry. The author did not use rhyming or syllabication schemes in her poems. She used free-verse without limitation of the rhymes and syllables. It shows that Bishop did not like limitations. She makes sure that she maximized all the opportunities that he has whether in personal or career aspect of his life. When it comes to her poems, he did not limit herself to many things because she wants to show everything that is within her reach. Bishop’s poems show that she loves nature as its best. She perceives nature an important tool in her writings. In the poem Florida, it was just as simple description of the setting of Florida if we look at the literal attack of the author. She illustrates the characteristic and nature of Florida. She did not incorporate any human perspective in this poem. Everything is meant for nature’s purpose and is not from man-made signification. Bishop is also open to many cultures in her poem. She described different images and elements that came from different cultures such as China and India. It means that she is not a discriminator in this aspect because as what we see in her chosen culture, which is China and India. Both of these came from Asia. Asia are known from different kinds of discriminations whether in language or in color. However, as what we see in her poem, she used these cultures as incorporation of the culture of Florida. Because the poem is free-flowing, the concepts and ideas are also free-flowing. It incorporates different kinds of ideologies that set the positive mood of the poem yearning for good realization and judgment of living in Florida. References Bishop, E. â€Å"The Map† Bishop, E. â€Å"Florida†