[The essay from which this excerpt is taken originally appeared in Sewanee Review, Summer 1947.] On the surface, [Elizabeth Bishop's poems in North & South] are observations—surpassingly accurate, witty and well-arranged, but nothing more. Sometimes she writes of a place where she has lived on the Atlantic Coast; at others, of a dream, a picture, or some fantastic object. One is reminded of Kafka and certain abstract paintings, and is left rather at sea about the actual subjects of the poe...