Biography Essay

Elizabeth Bishop started publishing poems in the mid 1930s, but her reputation as one of the best American poets has emerged rather slowly. She never rushed into print, and only in her last years did she give public readings of her work. One can think of few other writers who so steadily refused to exploit their "personalities"; yet in her poems a very distinctive voice and attitude can always be sensed. She was honored in several ways, and in 1976 she was the first American writer and the first woman to receive the Books Abroad I Neustadt International Prize for Literature, chosen by an international jury of writers who convened at the University of Oklahoma. And in the following year the poet Anthony Hecht, writing in the London Times Literary Supplement, said that "Hers is about the finest product our country can offer the world; we have...