Becky+Ittner+-+Elizabeth+Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop
=March 26=

** I Am in Need of Music ** ==== I am in need of music that would flow  ==== ==== Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,  ==== ==== Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,  ==== ==== With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. ==== ==== Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,  ==== ==== Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,  ==== ==== A song to fall like water on my head,  ==== ==== And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow! ====

==== There is a magic made by melody:  ==== ==== A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool  ==== ==== Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep  ==== ==== To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,  ==== ==== And floats forever in a moon-green pool,  ====

Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
= Explication =

Ironically, I first explored Elizabeth Bishop's "I Am in Need of Music" through song. This year at All State Chorus, my director chose a choral piece arranged by David Brunner that put the words of this poem to music. Upon receiving the piece, I immediately felt a strong connection to the text. Throughout the All State weekend, my director worked with our chorus to breathe life into Bishop's words through dynamics, accents, and more. I believe this poem speaks so strongly to me because music has become such a large and fulfilling part of my life. Using imagery and sensory detail, Bishop provides a beautiful description of the necessity of music in her own life as a means of escape and redemption.

Although "I Am in Need of Music" contains 14 lines like a traditional sonnet, it does not follow a set meter; rather, its pattern varies line by line. One aspect of the poem that remains constant, however, is its use of alliteration. Using phrases such as "fretful, feeling fingertips" and "subaqueous stillness of the sea," Bishop infuses her poem with a flowing, musical rhythm. In our performance of the musical rendition of "I Am in Need of Music," my chorus at All State gave these alliterations special emphasis, as Bishop likely intended. Another notable element of "I Am in Need of Music" is its sensory imagery. Bishop describes her desire that music would fall "like water on [her] head," and uses words such as "liquid-slow" and "flow," thus allowing readers to feel the flowing, transforming power of music throughout their bodies. The magnificence of "I Am In Need of Music," lies in its ability to move beyond a mere description of music to a truly sensory experience.

The youtube link below is my chorus's performance of "I Am in Need of Music" at our final All State concert. As you listen, pay careful attention to the various dynamic contrasts and accents throughout the song. For me, singing "I Am in Need of Music" made reading the poem much more enjoyable. The poem is meant to have a flowing rhythm, and performing the song aided me in recognizing and appreciating this aspect of the poem, as well its central focus on the power of music to calm and heal our human weakness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHE3Vw4z7Pw

In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment  and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. My aunt was inside what seemed like a long time and while I waited and read the National Geographic (I could read) and carefully studied the photographs: the inside of a volcano, black, and full of ashes; then it was spilling over in rivulets of fire. Osa and Martin Johnson dressed in riding breeches, laced boots, and pith helmets. A dead man slung on a pole "Long Pig," the caption said. Babies with pointed heads wound round and round with string; black, naked women with necks wound round and round with wire like the necks of light bulbs. Their breasts were horrifying. I read it right straight through. I was too shy to stop. And then I looked at the cover: the yellow margins, the date. Suddenly, from inside, came an oh! of pain --Aunt Consuelo's voice-- not very loud or long. I wasn't at all surprised; even then I knew she was a foolish, timid woman. I might have been embarrassed, but wasn't. What took me completely by surprise was that it was me: my voice, in my mouth. Without thinking at all I was my foolish aunt, I--we--were falling, falling, our eyes glued to the cover of the National Geographic, February, 1918.
 * In the Waiting Room **

I said to myself: three days and you'll be seven years old. I was saying it to stop the sensation of falling off the round, turning world. into cold, blue-black space. But I felt: you are an I, you are an Elizabeth, you are one of them. Why should you be one, too? I scarcely dared to look to see what it was I was. I gave a sidelong glance --I couldn't look any higher-- at shadowy gray knees, trousers and skirts and boots and different pairs of hands lying under the lamps. I knew that nothing stranger had ever happened, that nothing stranger could ever happen.

Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities boots, hands, the family voice I felt in my throat, or even the National Geographic and those awful hanging breasts held us all together or made us all just one? How I didn't know any word for it how "unlikely". . .  How had I come to be here, like them, and overhear a cry of pain that could have got loud and worse but hadn't?

The waiting room was bright and too hot. It was sliding beneath a big black wave, another, and another.

Then I was back in it. The War was on. Outside, in Worcester, Massachusetts, were night and slush and cold, and it was still the fifth of February, 1918.

Explication:
After only one reading, "In the Waiting Room" may seem deceptively simple. The truth, however, is that "In the Waiting Room" is a poem that explores a major question: What does it mean to be a woman? Bishop explores the theme of gender identity by collapsing her life's experiences into a single memory from her childhood, a technique which allows her to compare the moment she first discovered the implications of being a woman to the 1970's, when the definition of "womanhood" was once again being rewritten.

One of the most immediate and striking features of "In the Waiting Room" is its point of view; the poem employs a child narrator, who describes waiting at the dentist's office while her aunt is in the patient's room. The narrator's juvenile observations, however, are filtered through the adult poet's mature interpretation. So, one may ask, why did Bishop use a child narrator to explore such a heavy theme. The answer lies in the poem's uncomplicated, declarative language. By avoiding dense language, the reader can immediately understood what is occurring and what is being said. The theme of gender identity, uninhibited by complicated language, instantly jumps off the page with intense emotion. Furthermore, the poem employs iambic trimeter, which allows the poem to remain visually simple. Yet though the lines do not vary in width, the length of the stanzas varies significantly. The first stanza's lengthiness in comparison to subsequent stanzas seems to suggest a young child's wandering mind. The long first stanza could be called the young narrator's "epiphany," while the shorter nature of the second and third stanzas suggests her desperate and quickening attempt to understand what this epiphany means. The poem also employs powerful imagery, such as that of the volcano "black and full of ashes," which seems to represent the narrator's confused emotional state. As she reads the National Geographic, and gazes at images of tribal women and children, the narrator realizes that being a girl is very different from being a woman; women must carry a much heavier burden.

Bishop's "In the Waiting Room" remains powerful even in the present day. In a society that continues to mark and restrain women, the themes presented in "In the Waiting Room" still ring true and will continue to do so until women advance to their rightful place in society.



One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop media type="youtube" key="pAiik7SKXX8" height="315" width="560"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAiik7SKXX8&feature=related
"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop explores the "art" of loss - the loss of "door keys," "an hour," and ultimately, the loss of a more valuable treasure - a loving relationship. "One Art" relates directly to the events of Bishop's own life; Bishop composed the poem after the death of her companion Alice Methfessel Although the poem's method is the description of the accumulation of losses in Bishop's life, its occasion is the loss of Alice.

The death of Methfessel was one of many losses that Bishop experienced throughout her life, beginning at a young age. When she was only eight months old, Bishop's father died. A few years later, her mother was placed in a mental institution, and, sadly, the two were never reunited. Having suffered the loss of three of the most important figures in her life, Bishop was, it seems, pushed to the brink of utter despair. To face or perhaps to avoid this despair, Bishop wrote "One Art" in only two weeks, much shorter than her usual period of composition. Bishop later told an interviewer that writing "One Art" was effortless, "like writing a letter."

"One Art" is a villanelle, a rather complicated poetic form. A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. In the case of "One Art," the last word of every line either rhymes with "master" or "intent." The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. In "One Art," the ending line of every stanza alternates between the refrains "the art of losing isn't hard to master" and a variation of "it wasn't a disaster." A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain. Because of its non-linear structure, the villanelle resists narrative development. Yet despite the villanelle's general avoidance of a conversational tone, Bishop manages to maintain an effortless conversational flow in "One Art." More than anything, the poem conveys the feeling that in the course of writing or saying the poem, Bishop is trying to convince herself of a lesson in loss. The poem shares her ironic tips for learning to lose and to live with loss, beginning with simple, everyday losses and ending with the serious, devastating loss of a valuable treasure - a loved one.

Bishop begins "One Art" with the phrase "the art of losing isn't hard to master," and due to the poem's villanelle structure, this phrase is repeated throughout, including at the end. Bishop's repetition of this line demonstrates her desperate and devastated condition; she is attempting to convince not only her readers, but also herself that she can successfully cope with loss. In the five tercets of the poem, Bishop begins by mentioning the loss of rather insignificant possessions such as "door keys, the hour badly spent," and slowly moves on to more valuable possessions, such as "[her] mother's watch" and "three beloved houses," ending each stanza with the reminder that the art of losing "isn't hard to master" and that loss is "no disaster." In this way, "One Art" is somewhat deceiving, giving readers a false sense of security that is ultimately shattered in the last quatrain of the poem, when she mentions the most difficult loss of all: the loss of a loved one. Easily Bishop's most famous work, the magic of "One Art" lies in the fact that it forces readers to reflect introspectively on their own moments of loss. In this way, "One Art" represents Bishop's whole career of thoughtful, masterful poeticizing.

A Miracle for Breakfast
At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee,

waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb

that was going to be served from a certain balcony

--like kings of old, or like a miracle.

It was still dark. One foot of the sun

steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.

The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river.

It was so cold we hoped that the coffee

would be very hot, seeing that the sun

was not going to warm us; and that the crumb

would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.

At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.

He stood for a minute alone on the balcony

looking over our heads toward the river.

A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,

consisting of one lone cup of coffee

and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,

his head, so to speak, in the clouds--along with the sun.

Was the man crazy? What under the sun

was he trying to do, up there on his balcony!

Each man received one rather hard crumb,

which some flicked scornfully into the river,

and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee.

Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle.

I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle.

A beautiful villa stood in the sun

and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee.

In front, a baroque white plaster balcony

added by birds, who nest along the river,

--I saw it with one eye close to the crumb--

and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb

my mansion, made for me by a miracle,

through ages, by insects, birds, and the river

working the stone. Every day, in the sun,

at breakfast time I sit on my balcony

with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.

We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee.

A window across the river caught the sun

as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.

Elizabeth Bishop media type="youtube" key="rusGBVvK7TE" height="315" width="560" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rusGBVvK7TE Written in 1936, "A Miracle for Breakfast" is Elizabeth Bishop's direct response to the Great Depression, a time in which men and women, once able to support themselves, were forced to wait in breadlines to keep from starving. The poem is an example of a sestina, a structured 36-line poem consisting of six stanzas with six lines each, followed by a 3-line envoi. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas, rotated in a set pattern. In the case of "A Miracle for Breakfast," the words "coffee," "crumb," "balcony," "miracle," "sun," and "river" are used as line endings in each of the six stanzas in a rotated pattern. In the three-line envoi, all six of these words are present - three at the end of the lines and three within.

The poem sets the scene in the first stanza with powerful imagery. The narrator is standing in what seems to be a breadline, waiting for his or her daily ration of bread and coffee which is to be served "from a certain balcony -- like kings of old, or like a miracle." Hit hard by the Great Depression, the narrator now must take joy in the simple necessities of life - in this case, the "miracle" of a warm meal. After a long wait, the narrator and the surrounding crowd watch as a man steps onto the balcony above them with the "miracle" they have been waiting for: "one long cup of coffee and one roll." The narrator's tone quickly shifts from hopeful anticipation to aggravated disappointment as he or she asks "Was the man crazy?" The narrator realizes that the "miracle" he or she was hoping for is not coming; rather, each member of the hungry crowd receives only "one rather hard crumb" and "one drop of coffee." Some members of the crowd throw their ration "scornfully into the river," disappointed and frustrated. The narrator, however, remains behind, clinging to the small hope that his or her "miracle" will come true.

In the fifth and sixth stanzas, the narrator is suddenly transported to the world of his or her own imagination. Bishop uses imagery of "a beautiful villa in the sun" where the narrator has an unlimited supply of coffee and bread. This imagery contrasts directly with the cold and dark environment at the beginning of the poem. Using his or her imagination, the narrator has created a perfect version of paradise, and this, in itself, is a miracle.

Finally, in the last three-line envoi of the poem, the narrator is snapped back to reality. The fantasy, it seems, was only an illusion. Yet even though the narrator has returned to the reality of poverty and hardship, the poem does not adopt a somber or pessimistic tone. Rather, the narrator has discovered the incredible power of his or her own imagination, an imagination that can dissolve the troubles of reality by creating a perfect version of paradise. In this way, the narrator has found the "miracle" which he or she has been seeking all along. The narrator has simply been seeking it on the "wrong balcony," for it is the balcony of imagination, not reality, that will nourish and sustain in times of hardship. The balcony of reality, it seems, will only lead to disappointment.