Poetry Study Notes: Elizabeth Bishop

Each of the essays in this book is a close reading of the poem.
These notes are designed to help you, but you must not be a slave to them. Remember, no one reading of a poem is definitive. Poems are not puzzles to be cracked. What you are required to do when you write about poetry is to arrive at a genuine and individual personal response to something which is carefully crafted in language.
Poets are masters of language. They choose words more deliberately and consciously than is usual. After...