Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

The Art of Losing: The Love Life of Elizabeth Bishop


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The art of losing isn't hard to master in this episode devoted to the loves and losses of Elizabeth Bishop's life.

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Read Bishop's villanelle (the only one she ever published!)  "One Art." Read about her drafting process (at least 16 versions) here.

You can listen to Bishop read a few of her poems, including "In the Waiting Room" here--recorded at the 92nd Street Y in October 1977. And here's a much younger Bishop reading "The Fish."

Bishop's Paris Review interview is absolute gold.

For more on Lota and Samambaia, the house she built north of Rio, read this Paris Review article on two recent movies made about Bishop and Lota.

Other receipts for what we say in the show are found in this New York Times article, "The Love of Her Life"

For more about the acrimonious "war of the legal wills" between Bishop and Macedo Soares, I recommend David Hoak's article "Proofs of Love: The Last Letters of Lota de Macedo Soares," published in PN Review Volume 42 Number 2 (Nov-Dec 2015). The link contains a paywall.

See more photographs of Samambaia, the glass butterfly-shaped house Lota built in Petrópolis.

Here are the receipts about Judy Flynn.

Receipts for the Louise Crane-Billie Holiday tryst are here and here.

Read "The Loneliness of Elizabeth Bishop" in The Nation.

Crusoe in England" was a coded coping with grief over Soares' death. when the repatriated Robinson Crusoe recalls the loss of “Friday, my dear Friday,” who “died of measles / seventeen years ago come March.” Had Soares lived to one more March birthday, the couple would have spent seventeen years together. You can hear Bishop read (and follow along the text of) "Crusoe in England" here. 

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Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture PodcastBy Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall

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