Elizabeth+Bishop.

Elizabeth Bishop //__The Heart Warming and Intriguing Story of Elizabeth Bishop__//

Elizabeth Bishop was born on Feburary 8, 1911, only to have her successful father die a short eight months after. Then, when Elizabeth was five years old, her mother was taken away and admitted into a mental hospital, being mentally institutionalized. She would never be able to see her mother again. With no one to take care of her, she was made an orphan and taken in by her grandparents, who lived on a working farm in Great Village. This is where her first works of writing began. After a few years, Bishop’s family from her father’s side fought for custody over her, and won. She was ripped from the care of her loving grandparents, and sent to live with her wealthy family in Worcester, Massachusetts. The problem was, she hated living there, meanwhile developing severe asthma, which she suffered with for the entirety of her life. Originally in school, she planned to have a major in music. However, after the detrimental stock market crash, the thought of having a career on the performing arts scared Elizabeth, and she switched to English courses. Publishing her work in her senior year, she founded a rebel magazine, and then graduated in 1934. One of the most influential people in Bishop’s life was Marianna Moore, who she met in a library at Vassar the year she graduated. Moore took great interest in Elizabeth’s work, and proceeding convinced her to follow a career in poetry and writing. Robert Lowell and her became good poet friends as well in 1947, influencing each other’s writing through letters of communication. Her father’s family died, and the inheritance money that she received lasted her for the entirety of her life. With that, she was able to travel to places like France, Vassar, and to Florida where she married and divorced. In 1946, she won the Houghton Miffin Prize for poetry, awarding her with a $2500 traveling fellowship, seeing her off to South America. In the 1970’s, she began teaching to earn enough income to make up for her now running out inheritance, began a collection of unfinished works, and died in 1979.

Aim : Elizabeth Bishop never wanted to be viewed as a woman writer, and wanted people to base their opinion solely on her writing skills. To make sure of that, she never made talking about her personal life a large part of her work. She did not write for money, nor did she write for fame. She also had no particular interest in who was reading her work. She simply wrote poetry for the experiencing of self-achievement and self-discovery.

Audience : Elizabeth never wrote to a specific audience or age group, but more to people who would be able to relate to her as a person. Because she kept her personal life out of the work that she published, her lines describe the physical world that she lived it, but put hints of belonging and other human wonders as underlying questions. She included her own morals and wit throughout her poetry, but published on rare occasions, making sure to edit and reedit, to give the best possible quality she could give to the world.

Culture : Elizabeth Bishop lived in a time where other constantly wrote in a more confessional style, which involved large amounts of self-exposure. Her personal style contrasted that in various ways. Instead of going with the emotional flow of society, she focused on a more distant point of view involving highly detailed elements. This was a generation of new ideas, and because she was unique, she became ever popular.

Historical : Elizabeth Bishop is considered to be on of the most important distinguished American poets of the 20th century. She had a specialized taste: precise imagery. Not only was this sought after, but she personally began to grow a reputation slowly over time as she released her final products. With so much attention from both readers and critics, she is one of the most important influences in establishing a principle of poetry from that generation, shadowing into how artists perform in modern day.

__Poem one: //The 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.

Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,

drawing it unperturbed around itself?

Along the fine tan sandy shelf

is the land tugging at the sea from under?

The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still.

Labrador's yellow, where the moony Eskimo

has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays,

under a glass as if they were expected to blossom ,

or as if to provide a clean cage for invisible fish.

The names of seashore towns run out to sea ,

the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains

-the printer here experiencing the same excitement

as when emotion too far exceeds its cause.

These peninsulas take the water between thumb and finger

like women feeling for the smoothness of yard-goods.

Mapped waters are more quiet than the land is,

lending the land their waves' own conformation:

and Norway's hare runs south in agitation,

profiles investigate the sea, where land is.

Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?

-What suits the character or the native waters best.

Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.

More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.

__The Technique’s__: Imagery. Definition: Creating visual descriptions. Quote: "Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.”

Simile. Definition: Comparison using like or as. Quote: "We can stroke these lovely bays, under a glass as if they were expected to blossom.”

Personification. Definition: Human qualities given to non-human characters. Quote: "The names of seashore towns run out to sea."

//__Into the Ocean__// __by Blue October__ Common literary elements: - Imagery : "The lighthouse beam has just run out.” - Simile : ”Colliding into sound like whales beneath me diving down." - Personification : “Let what I feel right now rain down, let the rain come down.”

Lyrics: I'm just a normal boy

That sank when I fell overboard

My ship would leave the country

But I'd rather swim ashore

Without a life vest I'd be stuck again

Wish I was much more masculine

Maybe then I could learn to swim

Like 'fourteen miles away

Now floating up and down

I spin, colliding into sound

Like whales beneath me diving down

I'm sinking to the bottom of my

Everything that freaks me out

The lighthouse beam has just run out

I'm cold as cold as cold as can be

Be

I want to swim away but don't know how

Sometimes it feels just like I'm fallin in the ocean

Let the waves up take me down

Let the hurricane set in motion, yeah

Let what I feel right now rain down

Let the rain come down

Where is the coastguard

I keep looking each direction

For a spotlight, give me something

I need something for protection

Maybe flotsam junk will do just fine

The jetsam sunk, I'm left behind

I'm treading for my life believe me

(How can I keep up this breathing)

Not knowing how to think

I scream aloud, begin to sink

My legs and arms are broken down

With envy for the solid ground

I'm reaching for the life within me

How can one man stop his ending

I thought of just your face

Relaxed, and floated into space

I want to swim away but don't know how

Sometimes it feels just like I'm fallin in the ocean

Let the waves up take me down

Let the hurricane set in motion, yeah

Let what I feel right now rain down

Let the rain come down

Now waking to the sun

I calculate what I had done

Like jumping from the bow, yeah

Just to prove I knew how, yeah

It's midnight's late reminder of

The loss of her, the one I love

My will to quickly end it all

Sat front-row in my need to fall

Into the ocean, end it all

Into the ocean, end it all

Into the ocean, end it all

Into the ocean... end it all

[Zayra]

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

I want to swim away but don't know how

Sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean

Let the waves up take me down

Let the hurricane set in motion, yeah

Let what I feel right now rain down

Let the rain come down

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

(In to space)

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

I thought of just your face

The Common Theme: Life’s purpose and finding where you belong.

__Poem two: //The Fish//____.__

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.

He hadn't fought at all.

He hung a grunting weight,

battered and venerable

and homely. Here and there

his brown skin hung in strips

like ancient wallpaper,

and its pattern of darker brown

was like wallpaper:

shapes like full-blown roses

stained and lost through age.

He was speckled with barnacles,

fine rosettes of lime,

and infested

with tiny white sea-lice,

and underneath two or three

rags of green weed hung down.

While his gills were breathing in

the terrible oxygen

- the frightening gills,

fresh and crisp with blood,

that can cut so badly-

I thought of the coarse white flesh

packed in like feathers,

the big bones and the little bones,

the dramatic reds and blacks

of his shiny entrails,

and the pink swim-bladder

like a big peony.

I looked into his eyes

which were far larger than mine

but shallower, and yellowed,

the irises backed and packed

with tarnished tinfoil

seen through the lenses

of old scratched isinglass.

They shifted a little, but not

to return my stare.

- It was more like the tipping

of an object toward the light.

I admired his sullen face,

the mechanism of his jaw,

and then I saw

that from his lower lip

- if you could call it a lip

grim, wet, and weaponlike,

hung five old pieces of fish-line,

or four and a wire leader

with the swivel still attached,

with all their five big hooks

grown firmly in his mouth.

A green line, frayed at the end

where he broke it, two heavier lines,

and a fine black thread

still crimped from the strain and snap

when it broke and he got away.

Like medals with their ribbons

frayed and wavering,

a five-haired beard of wisdom

trailing from his aching jaw.

I stared and stared

and victory filled up

the little rented boat,

from the pool of bilge

where oil had spread a rainbow

around the rusted engine

to the bailer rusted orange,

the sun-cracked thwarts,

the oarlocks on their strings,

the gunnels- until everything

was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!

And I let the fish go.

__The Technique’s__: Imagery. Definition: Creating visuals with word descriptions. Quote: "Where oil had spread a rainbow.”

Symbolism. Definition: When something represents or symbolizes something else. Quote: "I caught a tremendous fish.” (The fish is actually her talking about herself.)

Hyperbole. Definition: Exaggeration to help bring emphasis and detail. Quote: "Until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!”

//__Mad World__// __by Gary Jules.__ Common literary elements: - Imagery : "The tears are filling up their glasses.” - Symbolism : "Bright and early for the daily races." (Meaning getting up and starting daily life.) - Hyperbole : "Going no where, going no where.”

Lyrics: All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places

Worn out faces

Bright and early for their daily races

Going nowhere

Going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses

No expression

No expression

Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow

No tomorrow

No tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny

I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I’m dying

Are the best I’ve ever had

I find it hard to tell you

'Cos I find it hard to take

When people run in circles

It´s a very very

Mad world

Mad world

Mad world

Mad World

Children waiting for the day they feel good

Happy birthday

Happy birthday

And I feel the way that every child should

Sit and listen

Sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous

No one knew me

No one knew me

Hello teacher tell me what´s my lesson

Look right through me

Look right through me

And I find it kind of funny

I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I’m dying

Are the best I’ve ever had

I find it hard to tell you

Cos' I find it hard to take

When people run in circles

It´s a very very

Mad world

Mad world

The Common Theme: You cannot fight what life brings you, but merely hope for the best.

__Poem three: //Insomnia//__ __.__ The moon in the bureau mirror

looks out a million miles

(and perhaps with pride, at herself,

but she never, never smiles)

far and away beyond sleep, or

perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,

she'd tell it to go to hell ,

and she'd find a body of water,

or a mirror, on which to dwell.

So wrap up care in a cobweb

and drop it down the well

into that world inverted

where left is always right,

where the shadows are really the body,

where we stay awake all night,

where the heavens are shallow as the sea

is now deep, and you love me.

__The Technique’s__: Rhyme Scheme. Definition: Words with similar endings made to sound alike. Quote: "She’d tell it to go to hell.” “Or a mirror, on which to dwell.”

Simile. Definition: A comparison using like or as. Quote: "Where the heavens are as shallow as the sea.”

Imagery. Definition: Visual pictures made with word description. Quote: "So wrap up care in a cobweb.”

//__First Day of My Life__// __by Bright Eyes.__ Common literary elements: - Rhyme Scheme : "I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed. " - Simile : "Everything changed as if you just woke up." - Imagery : "I swear I was born right in the doorway.” “Spreading blankets on the beach.”

Lyrics: This is the first day of my life

Swear I was born right in the doorway

I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed

They're spreading blankets on the beach

Your's is the first face that I saw

I think I was blind before I met you

Now I don't know where I am

Don't know where I've been

But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I'd let you know

That these things take forever

I especially am slow

But I realized that I need you

And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night

Just to meet me in the morning

And I thought it was strange

Everything changed

As if you'd just woke up

And you said, "This is the first day of my life

I'm glad I didn't die before I met you

But, now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you

And I'd probably be happy"

So if you wanna be with me

With these things there's no telling

We'll just have to wait and see

But I'd rather be working for a paycheck

Than waiting to win the lottery

Besides, maybe this time it's different

I mean I really think you like me, me, me, me

The Common Theme: It doesn’t matter where you are, but whom it is you are with.

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