Elizabeth Bishop

15+ Must-Read Elizabeth Bishop Poems

(15 to start, 18+ to explore)

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet who won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for her collection Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring. She also won the National Book Award in 1970 and taught at Harvard University. She was awarded an Academy Fellowship in 1964 for her lifetime achievement. She greatly resisted the confessional forms of poetry that were becoming popular in the 1960s, preferring a more distant and abstracted poetic voice.

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Poem Explorer Poetry Archives

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Missing Someone

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One Art

‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop reveals the extent to which people will deny the possibility of grief as a way of coping with inevitable loss, comparing it to an art form that can be easily mastered.

Of all the many poems about loss, grief, and yearning, Bishop's poem captures the earnestness with which an abundance of sorrow might incentivize numbness or apathy. Its diction, tone, and imagery paint a portrait of an individual struggling to both move on and fortify themselves against future losses. As the poem ends, the facade starts to crack, revealing the nuances of the speaker's embattled emotions.

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.

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Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance

‘Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance’ is about a struggle to reconcile the immediacy of experience with the abstraction of meaning.

This is a pivotal poem in Bishop's oeuvre, as it is both a setting out and questioning of her own poetics, often referred to as a 'geographical poetics'. It questions the sufficiency of the poetic form to bring the disparate perceptions of one's experience into a concordance.

Thus should have been our travels:

serious, engravable.

The Seven Wonders of the World are tired

and a touch familiar, but the other scenes,

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Death of a Loved One

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First Death in Nova Scotia

Bishop’s poem, ‘First Death in Nova Scotia’, is the detailed description of a child’s first encounter with death and the emotions this discovery causes.

‘First Death in Nova Scotia’ beautifully represents Elizabeth Bishop’s style. Her poetry often captures small, personal moments with universal depth. Like her other works, this poem pairs striking imagery—red glass eyes of a loon, frosted snow—with quiet reflection. Bishop’s knack for blending emotion and observation feels like noticing details in life’s hardest moments, making her relatable and timeless.

Below them on the table

stood a stuffed loon

shot and stuffed by Uncle

Arthur, Arthur's father.

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The Fish

‘The Fish’ by Elizabeth Bishop is considered to be one of her best poems. In it, readers can find some clues about her personal life.

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet known for her precise, detailed, and descriptive style. Her poetry often explored themes of loss, nature, and the human condition, as seen in 'The Fish.' Bishop's poems are known for their attention to detail, creating vivid images that evoke powerful emotions.

I caught a tremendous fish

and held him beside the boat

half out of water, with my hook

fast in a corner of his mouth.

He didn't fight.

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The Imaginary Iceberg

‘The Imaginary Iceberg’ plays with notions of reality, fantasy, and beauty by describing the grandeur of the titular iceberg.

Elizabeth Bishop’s distinctive style - precise and restrained, yet philosophical - is clearly present, showcasing her early poetic voice and interest in nature and perception. Her affinity for nature is particularly evident in this poem, which idealises the grandeur and majesty of nature. An iceberg is used to represent this, which the speaker becomes fascinated by. In its encapsulation of the natural world, it comes to represent the limits of imagination itself: vast in its capabilities, yet most of it remaining beneath the surface, waiting to be seen.

We'd rather have the iceberg than the ship,

although it meant the end of travel.

Although it stood stock-still like cloudy rock

and all the sea were moving marble.

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At the Fishhouses

Through vivid detail and contemplation, ‘At the Fishhouses’ by Bishop explores the intricate bond between humans and nature.

Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘At the Fishhouses’ shows her strong gift for describing places with care and attention. While it may not be her most famous work, it remains one of her most admired because of how deeply it pulls the reader into a quiet, personal moment that slowly turns thoughtful. The poem may seem simple at first, but it gently unfolds into something reflective, which is very typical of Bishop’s poetic voice.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,

element bearable to no mortal,

to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly

I have seen here evening after evening.

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Filling Station

‘Filling Station’ by Elizabeth Bishop describes a speaker’s initial reaction, and later feelings, about the value of a dirty filling station.

Oh, but it is dirty!

–this little filling station,

oil-soaked, oil-permeated

to a disturbing, over-all

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I Am In Need of Music

‘I Am In Need of Music’ by Elizabeth Bishop describes the desire a speaker has to be held, calmed down and consumed by the music she loves.

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.

#9

In the Waiting Room

Bishop’s ‘In the Waiting Room’ delves into a young girl’s unsettling insights into adulthood and identity through an emotional upheaval.

In Worcester, Massachusetts,

I went with Aunt Consuelo

to keep her dentist's appointment

and sat and waited for her

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Questions of Travel

In ‘Questions of Travel,’ Bishop navigates the complexities of wanderlust and belonging, capturing the essence of travel’s paradox.

Think of the long trip home.

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

Where should we be today?

Is it right to be watching strangers in a play

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Sestina

‘Sestina’ by Bishop explores home and solitude through a grandmother and child, blending reality with fantasy in a poignant narrative.

September rain falls on the house.

In the failing light, the old grandmother

sits in the kitchen with the child

beside the Little Marvel Stove,

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Song for the Rainy Season

Bishop’s ‘Song for the Rainy Season’ captures a home’s quiet, lush life amid the rain, hinting at nature’s transient beauty.

Hidden, oh hidden

in the high fog

the house we live in,

beneath the magnetic rock,

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The Armadillo

Bishop’s ‘The Armadillo’ contrasts fire balloons’ beauty with their destructive wake, highlighting nature’s vulnerability.

This is the time of year

when almost every night

the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.

Climbing the mountain height,

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The Bight

‘The Bight’ by Elizabeth Bishop describes low tide in a bight where birds, shattered boats, fishermen and the poet herself are part of the scenery.

At low tide like this how sheer the water is.

White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare

and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.

Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,

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The Map

‘The Map,’ written in 1934, is the signature poem of Elizabeth Bishop that transcends the boundaries of the real and imaginatively inspects the topographical features within a map.

Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.

Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges

showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges

where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.

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