Sandpiper

“Sandpiper” focuses on the quotidian, which means everyday occurrence. A bird running along the beach looking for food is something that happens every day, rather than being a monumental event. The poet seeks meaning in mundane moments such as this. The sandpiper’s search is a mechanism for exploring her search for meaning. The modern idea of mindfulness can be compared to Bishop’s approach in this poem. She seeks to gain a sense of the world by looking at the small details within it: “(no detail too small)” (Line 10), she says. Bishop placing this phrase in parentheses emphasizes how it is about something that is often ignored, like an aside or divergence. The sandpiper is a small bird, and the grains of sand between its toes are even smaller. Bishop explores these parenthetical things.

Specificity of location is another way to enhance the quotidian. Bishop chooses to narrow the location of the poem’s scene to the Atlantic coast: “the Atlantic drains / rapidly backwards and downwards” (Lines 10-11). By removing the ambiguity of the beach, the poem transforms from a general meditation on beaches and sandpipers to describing a specific set of observations. The Atlantic is a large ocean, touching the whole East coast of the United States, including where Bishop grew up and lived for periods of her life.