Arrival at Santos

Bishop wrote at a time of change in American poetry, yet she is known for her individuality and her independence from the literary movements of her day. A lesbian who lived openly with several lovers and a woman who traveled broadly on her own, Bishop defined herself as a feminist, yet she explicitly requested not to have her poetry included in feminist or women-only publications. She wanted her work to be judged on its own merit, not as feminist literature. Nor did she write openly about her sexuality in poetry, setting her apart from other confessional poets, male and female.

The phrase “confessional poetry” was coined in 1959, by literary critic M.L. Rosenthal in his review of Robert Lowell’s book Life Studies (1959). Lowell, along with other contemporaries of Elizabeth Bishop, including Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton adopted and pioneered this style of writing, which allowed poets to write about personal experiences that might be considered taboo. Their work told stories of sexual abuse, drug use, extra-marital affairs, and dissatisfaction with burdensome expectations of society.

Bishop maintained a long, well-documented friendship with Lowell, exchanging letters about poetry with him for thirty years. Raised as a “proper lady”, Bishop wrote to him that she did not like confessional poetry because it allowed people to write too explicitly about these topics.