Poems, page 18
Creak, creak … frozen thongs and creaking snow.
These drifts are endless, I think; as far as the Pole
they hold no shadows but their own, and ours.
Grandfather, please stop! I haven’t been this cold in years.
Mid-1970s? (Vassar 65.19); published in Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box.
APPENDIX II: Contents of Elizabeth
Bishop’s Books of Poetry on First
Publication, 1946–1977
The most dramatic changes between editions are to the order of poems and the omission of some content. Bishop revised individual poems minimally between books, rewording or reshaping in a few instances half a line or three. In addition, she added dedications, corrected misprints, and changed punctuation—periods, commas, and dashes, and, most frequently, hyphens (omitted or added). All the variants between editions are noted in Candace W. MacMahon’s Elizabeth Bishop: A Bibliography, 1927–1979 (Charlottesville: Bibliographical Society of University of Virginia, University of Virginia Press, 1980). This edition follows The Complete Poems (1969) and Geography III (1976); the notes list only instances in which the texts differ in wording from the first book publications or where a revision published in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979 (1983) has been adopted.
NORTH & SOUTH (HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, 1946)
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; Casabianca; The Colder the Air; Wading at Wellfleet; Chemin de Fer; The Gentleman of Shalott; Large Bad Picture; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; Love Lies Sleeping; A Miracle for Breakfast; 1 The Weed; The Unbeliever; The Monument; Paris, 7 A.M.; Quai D’Orleans; 2 Sleeping on the Ceiling; Sleeping Standing Up; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; Roosters; Seascape; Little Exercise; 3 The Fish; Late
Air; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; 4 Anaphora5
POEMS: NORTH & SOUTH—A COLD SPRING (HOUGHTON MIFFLIN,
1955)
NORTH & SOUTH
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; Casabianca; The Colder the Air; Wading at Wellfleet; Chemin de Fer; The Gentleman of Shalott; Large Bad Picture; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; Love Lies Sleeping; A Miracle for Breakfast; The Weed; The Unbeliever; The Monument; Paris, 7 A.M.; Quai D’Orleans; Sleeping on the Ceiling; Sleeping Standing Up; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; Roosters; Seascape; Little Exercise; The Fish; Late Air; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; Anaphora
A COLD SPRING
A Cold Spring; Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance; The Bight; A Summer’s Dream; Cape Breton; At the Fishhouses; 6 View of The Capitol from The Library of Congress; Insomnia; The Prodigal; Faustina, or Rock Roses; Varick Street; Four Poems; Argument; Letter to N.Y.; The Mountain; 7 Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore; Arrival at Santos;8 The Shampoo
POEMS (CHATTO & WINDUS, 1956)
The Map; The Colder the Air; The Imaginary Iceberg; Wading at Wellfleet; The Man-Moth; Large Bad Picture; The Unbeliever; The Weed; Cirque D’Hiver; Sleeping Standing Up; Roosters; The Fish; Little Exercise; Letter to N.Y.; A Cold Spring; At the Fishhouses; The Bight; Faustina, or Rock Roses; The Prodigal; Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore
QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL (FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 1965)
I. BRAZIL
Arrival at Santos; Brazil, January 1, 1502; Questions of Travel; Squatter’s Children; Manuelzinho; Electrical Storm; Song for the Rainy Season;9 The
Armadillo; The Riverman; Twelfth Morning; or What You Will; The Burglar of Babylon10
II. ELSEWHERE
In the Village (a story); 11 Manners; Sestina; First Death in Nova Scotia; Filling Station; Sunday, 4 A.M.; Sandpiper; 12 From Trollope’s Journal; Visits to St.
Elizabeths13
SELECTED POEMS (CHATTO & WINDUS, 1967)14
From NORTH & SOUTH
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; The Colder the Air; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; A Miracle for Breakfast; Large Bad Picture; The Monument; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; The Fish; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; Roosters
From A COLD SPRING
Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance; The Bight; Faustina, or Rock Roses; A Summer’s Dream; Cape Breton; At the Fishhouses; The Prodigal; Varick Street; Two Poems; 15 Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore; The Shampoo From QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL
I. Brazil
Arrival at Santos; Brazil, January 1, 1502; Questions of Travel; Squatter’s Children; Manuelzinho; Electrical Storm; Song for the Rainy Season; The Armadillo; The Riverman; Twelfth Morning; or What You Will; The Burglar of
Babylon
II. Elsewhere
Manners; Sestina; First Death in Nova Scotia; Filling Station; Sandpiper; From Trollope’s Journal; Visits to St. Elizabeths16
THE BALLAD OF THE BURGLAR OF BABYLON (FARRAR, STRAUS
AND GIROUX, 1968)17
Introduction; The Ballad of the Burglar of Babylon
THE COMPLETE POEMS (FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 1969;
CHATTO & WINDUS, 1970)
NORTH & SOUTH
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; Casabianca; The Colder the Air; Wading at Wellfleet; Chemin de Fer; The Gentleman of Shalott; Large Bad Picture; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; Love Lies Sleeping; A Miracle for Breakfast; The Weed; The Unbeliever; The Monument, Paris, 7 A.M.; Quai D’Orleans; Sleeping on the Ceiling; Sleeping Standing Up; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; Roosters; Seascape; Little Exercise; The Fish; Late Air; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; Anaphora
A COLD SPRING
A Cold Spring; Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance; The Bight; A Summer’s Dream; At the Fishhouses; Cape Breton; View of The Capitol from The Library of Congress; Insomnia; The Prodigal; Faustina, or Rock Roses; Varick Street; Four Poems; Letter to N.Y.; Argument; Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore; The Shampoo
QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL
I. Brazil
Arrival at Santos; Brazil, January 1, 1502; Questions of Travel; Squatter’s Children; Manuelzinho; Electrical Storm; Song for the Rainy Season; The Armadillo; The River-man; Twelfth Morning; or What You Will; The Burglar of Babylon
II. Elsewhere
Manners; Sestina; First Death in Nova Scotia; Filling Station; Sunday, 4 A.M.; Sandpiper; From Trollope’s Journal
III. Translations from the Portuguese
Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Seven-Sided Poem; Don’t Kill Yourself;
Travelling in the Family; The Table; 18 João Cabral de Melo Neto: From The Death and Life of a Severino
New and Uncollected Work
Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics; The Hanging of the Mouse; Some Dreams They Forgot; Song; House Guest; Trouvée; Going to the Bakery; 19 Under the Window: Ouro Prêto
GEOGRAPHY III (FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 1976; CHATTO &
WINDUS, 1977)
In the Waiting Room; Crusoe in England; 20 Night City; The Moose; 12 O’Clock News; Poem; One Art; The End of March; Objects & Apparitions; Five Flights Up
NOTES
1. In line 32, “made for me a miracle” became “made for me by a miracle” in Poems: North & South—A Cold Spring (1955).
2. A dedication to Margaret Miller was added in The Complete Poems.
3. A dedication to Thomas Edwards Manning was added in The Complete Poems.
4. Lines 15–17 of section I
and find it very hard
that all we got for all his dollars and cents
’s a pile of bottles by the fence
were rewritten to read:
and find it very hard.
What have we got for all his dollars and cents?
—A pile of bottles by the fence.
in The Complete Poems. In section II, line 5
’cause this occasion’s all his fault.
was rewritten to read
this occasion’s all his fault.
5. A dedication in memory of Marjorie Carr Stevens was added in The Complete Poems.
6. A comma was added to the end of line 4 in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979
(a change not followed in this edition).
7. Omitted from the paperback edition (1965) and from The Complete Poems.
8. In the Questions of Travel (1965) version, a misprint of “self-pitying, mountains” in line 3 was corrected to read “self-pitying mountains.” Line 5, with a little church on top of one. And some warehouses
became
with a little church on top of one. And warehouses
Line 26,
a retired police lieutenant, and six feet tall,
became
a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall,
Line 31,
and leave us our Scotch and cigarettes.
became
and leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.
Also, the subscript “January 1952” was added. In her instructions to the publisher of Complete Poems, Bishop wrote, “‘Arrival at Santos’ should, of course, be used only once.… I would like to have it appear in the Questions of Travel section, in the version it appears in in Questions of Travel” (EB to Michael di Capua and Cynthia Muser, September 21, 1968, copies at Vassar
and The New York Public Library).
9. A subscript “Síto da Alcobaçinha, Fazenda Samambaia, Petrópolis” was added in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
10. In line 112, the misprint of “out at the sea” was corrected to read “out at sea,”
and an extra gap between stanzas 43 and 44 (setting off the final four stanzas) was closed in The Complete Poems. An extra gap between stanzas 45 and 46 (setting off the final two stanzas, which was Bishop’s wish) was added in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
11. Omitted from The Complete Poems but proposed for inclusion in an edition
of her prose that Bishop contemplated entitling In the Village & Other Stories or In the Village: Stories and Essays.
12. Line 13:
The world is a mist. The world is uniquely
was rewritten to read
The world is a mist. And then the world is
in The Complete Poems.
13. A subscript “November, 1951” was omitted in The Complete Poems.
14. The selection was made by Elizabeth Bishop. In a letter published in The Times Literary Supplement, Bishop responded to complaints that Chatto & Windus had omitted “In the Village” from her Selected Poems: “It is true that the publishers did not choose to include a story that appeared in my last volume of poems published in the United States. However, I was entirely responsible for the selection of poems. It is possible I was over-fussy”
(Elizabeth Bishop to the Editor, TLS, February 15, 1968, p. 157).
15. “Rain Towards Morning” and “While Someone Telephones.”
16. A subscript dated “November, 1951” is omitted in The Complete Poems.
17. With woodcuts by Ann Grifalconi.
18. In line 236, “What nothing” was revised to read “But no!” (to better reflect the Portuguese “Qual nada”) in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979. Bishop wrote this change in the margin of Eamon Grennan’s copy of The Complete Poems (1969, sixth printing 1978), and initialed the change.
19. A revision of “Oh, poor habit!” to “Oh, mean habit!” in the penultimate line was included in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
20. In line 24, “over-lapping” became “overlapping” in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979 (the second change not followed in the present edition). In Bishop’s own copy of Geography III, she canceled “the” in line 173 (“the shrivelled shoes”) and wrote “those?” in the margin, but the change was not adopted in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
Index of Titles and First Lines
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
About the size of an old-style dollar bill
A cold spring:
Across the floor flits the mechanical toy
After Rishikesh
Alone on the railroad track
ALONG GALEANA STREET (Octavio Paz)
Although it is a cold evening
ANAPHORA
And you never liked parties …
An endless and flooded
A new volcano has erupted
APARTMENT IN LEME
ARGUMENT
ARMADILLO, THE
ARRIVAL AT SANTOS
As far as statues go, so far there’s not
As we lie down to sleep the world turns half away
As you all know, tonight is the night of the full moon
At evening, something behind me.
At first I took it for a bird
At four o’clock
At low tide like this how sheer the water is
At night the factories
At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee
AT THE FISHHOUSES
A washing hangs upon the line
BANKS (Max Jacob)
Bed, birdcage, and a chest of drawers
Beneath that loved and celebrated breast
BIGHT, THE
BRAZIL, JANUARY 1, 1502
BRAZILIAN TRAGEDY (Manuel Bandeira)
BREAKFAST SONG
BURGLAR OF BABYLON, THE
CAPE BRETON
Carlos, keep calm, love
CASABIANCA
Caught—the bubble
CEMETERY OF CHILDHOOD (Joaquim Cardozo)
CHEMIN DE FER
CIRQUE D’HIVER
COLDER THE AIR, THE
COLD SPRING, A
CONVERSATION
COOTCHIE
Cootchie, Miss Lula’s servant, lies in marl
CRUSOE IN ENGLAND
Dawn an unsympathetic yellow.
Days that cannot bring you near
“DEAR, MY COMPASS…”
Dear, my compass
DEATH AND LIFE OF A SEVERINO, FROM THE (João Cabral de Melo Neto)
DEATH OF MIMOSO
DON’T KILL YOURSELF (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
DRUNKARD, A
Each barge on the river easily tows
Each day with so much ceremony
Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
Early, early in the morning, even before five o’clock, the mouse was
Easily through the darkened room
EDGAR ALLAN POE & THE JUKE-BOX
ELECTRICAL STORM
ELEGY FOR MARIA ALVES (Joaquim Cardozo)
END OF MARCH, THE
Enormous and solid
EXCHANGING HATS
FAMILY PORTRAIT (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
Farm afternoons, there’s much too much blue air.
FAUSTINA, OR ROCK ROSES
FILLING STATION
FIRST DEATH IN NOVA SCOTIA
FISH, THE
FIVE FLIGHTS UP
FLOOD, THE
FLORIDA
FLORIDA REVISITED
FOR A.B.
FOR GRANDFATHER
FOUR POEMS
I / CONVERSATION
II / RAIN TOWARDS MORNING
III / WHILE SOMEONE TELEPHONES
IV / O BREATH
FOUR SAMBAS (Anonymous)
From a magician’s midnight sleeve
From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning
From narrow provinces
FROM THE COUNTRY TO THE CITY
FROM TROLLOPE’S JOURNAL
GENTLEMAN OF SHALOTT, THE
GIANT SNAIL
GIANT TOAD
GOING TO THE BAKERY
GOOD-BYE—
GROVE, THE (Octavio Paz)
Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
Hammers pound there above
HANGING OF THE MOUSE, THE
HELL IS GRADUATED (Max Jacob)
Here, above
Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
He sleeps on the top of a mast
Hexahedrons of wood and glass
Hidden, oh hidden
HOUSE GUEST
How far north are you by now?
HYMN TO THE VIRGIN
I am too big, too big by far. Pity me.
I bring you now these flowers
I can make out the rigging of a schooner
I caught a tremendous fish
I complain like the flute
I dreamed that dead, and meditating
If you taste tears too often, inquisitive tongue
I got up in the night
“I HAD A BAD DREAM…”
I had a bad dream
I live only here, between your eyes and you
IMAGINARY ICEBERG, THE
I make a trip to each clock in the apartment:
IN A ROOM
INFANCY (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
In one of the Assyrian wars
INSOMNIA
Instead of gazing at the sea
In the cemetery of Childhood
In the cold, cold parlor
In the desert of Itabira
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
In the middle of the road there was a stone
IN THE WAITING ROOM
In the walled-off swimming-pool the water is perfectly flat.
INVENTORY
INVITATION TO MISS MARIANNE MOORE
In Worcester, Massachusetts
In your next letter I wish you’d say
It finds the park first, and the trees
“IT IS MARVELLOUS TO WAKE UP TOGETHER…”
It is marvellous to wake up together
It is so peaceful on the ceiling!
It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
It was the hour when night makes the mountains lament
I will be good; I will be good.
I will not play the slot-machine.
I would like my last poem thus
These drifts are endless, I think; as far as the Pole
they hold no shadows but their own, and ours.
Grandfather, please stop! I haven’t been this cold in years.
Mid-1970s? (Vassar 65.19); published in Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box.
APPENDIX II: Contents of Elizabeth
Bishop’s Books of Poetry on First
Publication, 1946–1977
The most dramatic changes between editions are to the order of poems and the omission of some content. Bishop revised individual poems minimally between books, rewording or reshaping in a few instances half a line or three. In addition, she added dedications, corrected misprints, and changed punctuation—periods, commas, and dashes, and, most frequently, hyphens (omitted or added). All the variants between editions are noted in Candace W. MacMahon’s Elizabeth Bishop: A Bibliography, 1927–1979 (Charlottesville: Bibliographical Society of University of Virginia, University of Virginia Press, 1980). This edition follows The Complete Poems (1969) and Geography III (1976); the notes list only instances in which the texts differ in wording from the first book publications or where a revision published in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979 (1983) has been adopted.
NORTH & SOUTH (HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, 1946)
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; Casabianca; The Colder the Air; Wading at Wellfleet; Chemin de Fer; The Gentleman of Shalott; Large Bad Picture; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; Love Lies Sleeping; A Miracle for Breakfast; 1 The Weed; The Unbeliever; The Monument; Paris, 7 A.M.; Quai D’Orleans; 2 Sleeping on the Ceiling; Sleeping Standing Up; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; Roosters; Seascape; Little Exercise; 3 The Fish; Late
Air; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; 4 Anaphora5
POEMS: NORTH & SOUTH—A COLD SPRING (HOUGHTON MIFFLIN,
1955)
NORTH & SOUTH
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; Casabianca; The Colder the Air; Wading at Wellfleet; Chemin de Fer; The Gentleman of Shalott; Large Bad Picture; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; Love Lies Sleeping; A Miracle for Breakfast; The Weed; The Unbeliever; The Monument; Paris, 7 A.M.; Quai D’Orleans; Sleeping on the Ceiling; Sleeping Standing Up; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; Roosters; Seascape; Little Exercise; The Fish; Late Air; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; Anaphora
A COLD SPRING
A Cold Spring; Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance; The Bight; A Summer’s Dream; Cape Breton; At the Fishhouses; 6 View of The Capitol from The Library of Congress; Insomnia; The Prodigal; Faustina, or Rock Roses; Varick Street; Four Poems; Argument; Letter to N.Y.; The Mountain; 7 Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore; Arrival at Santos;8 The Shampoo
POEMS (CHATTO & WINDUS, 1956)
The Map; The Colder the Air; The Imaginary Iceberg; Wading at Wellfleet; The Man-Moth; Large Bad Picture; The Unbeliever; The Weed; Cirque D’Hiver; Sleeping Standing Up; Roosters; The Fish; Little Exercise; Letter to N.Y.; A Cold Spring; At the Fishhouses; The Bight; Faustina, or Rock Roses; The Prodigal; Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore
QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL (FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 1965)
I. BRAZIL
Arrival at Santos; Brazil, January 1, 1502; Questions of Travel; Squatter’s Children; Manuelzinho; Electrical Storm; Song for the Rainy Season;9 The
Armadillo; The Riverman; Twelfth Morning; or What You Will; The Burglar of Babylon10
II. ELSEWHERE
In the Village (a story); 11 Manners; Sestina; First Death in Nova Scotia; Filling Station; Sunday, 4 A.M.; Sandpiper; 12 From Trollope’s Journal; Visits to St.
Elizabeths13
SELECTED POEMS (CHATTO & WINDUS, 1967)14
From NORTH & SOUTH
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; The Colder the Air; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; A Miracle for Breakfast; Large Bad Picture; The Monument; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; The Fish; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; Roosters
From A COLD SPRING
Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance; The Bight; Faustina, or Rock Roses; A Summer’s Dream; Cape Breton; At the Fishhouses; The Prodigal; Varick Street; Two Poems; 15 Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore; The Shampoo From QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL
I. Brazil
Arrival at Santos; Brazil, January 1, 1502; Questions of Travel; Squatter’s Children; Manuelzinho; Electrical Storm; Song for the Rainy Season; The Armadillo; The Riverman; Twelfth Morning; or What You Will; The Burglar of
Babylon
II. Elsewhere
Manners; Sestina; First Death in Nova Scotia; Filling Station; Sandpiper; From Trollope’s Journal; Visits to St. Elizabeths16
THE BALLAD OF THE BURGLAR OF BABYLON (FARRAR, STRAUS
AND GIROUX, 1968)17
Introduction; The Ballad of the Burglar of Babylon
THE COMPLETE POEMS (FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 1969;
CHATTO & WINDUS, 1970)
NORTH & SOUTH
The Map; The Imaginary Iceberg; Casabianca; The Colder the Air; Wading at Wellfleet; Chemin de Fer; The Gentleman of Shalott; Large Bad Picture; From the Country to the City; The Man-Moth; Love Lies Sleeping; A Miracle for Breakfast; The Weed; The Unbeliever; The Monument, Paris, 7 A.M.; Quai D’Orleans; Sleeping on the Ceiling; Sleeping Standing Up; Cirque D’Hiver; Florida; Jerónimo’s House; Roosters; Seascape; Little Exercise; The Fish; Late Air; Cootchie; Songs for a Colored Singer; Anaphora
A COLD SPRING
A Cold Spring; Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance; The Bight; A Summer’s Dream; At the Fishhouses; Cape Breton; View of The Capitol from The Library of Congress; Insomnia; The Prodigal; Faustina, or Rock Roses; Varick Street; Four Poems; Letter to N.Y.; Argument; Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore; The Shampoo
QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL
I. Brazil
Arrival at Santos; Brazil, January 1, 1502; Questions of Travel; Squatter’s Children; Manuelzinho; Electrical Storm; Song for the Rainy Season; The Armadillo; The River-man; Twelfth Morning; or What You Will; The Burglar of Babylon
II. Elsewhere
Manners; Sestina; First Death in Nova Scotia; Filling Station; Sunday, 4 A.M.; Sandpiper; From Trollope’s Journal
III. Translations from the Portuguese
Carlos Drummond de Andrade: Seven-Sided Poem; Don’t Kill Yourself;
Travelling in the Family; The Table; 18 João Cabral de Melo Neto: From The Death and Life of a Severino
New and Uncollected Work
Rainy Season; Sub-Tropics; The Hanging of the Mouse; Some Dreams They Forgot; Song; House Guest; Trouvée; Going to the Bakery; 19 Under the Window: Ouro Prêto
GEOGRAPHY III (FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 1976; CHATTO &
WINDUS, 1977)
In the Waiting Room; Crusoe in England; 20 Night City; The Moose; 12 O’Clock News; Poem; One Art; The End of March; Objects & Apparitions; Five Flights Up
NOTES
1. In line 32, “made for me a miracle” became “made for me by a miracle” in Poems: North & South—A Cold Spring (1955).
2. A dedication to Margaret Miller was added in The Complete Poems.
3. A dedication to Thomas Edwards Manning was added in The Complete Poems.
4. Lines 15–17 of section I
and find it very hard
that all we got for all his dollars and cents
’s a pile of bottles by the fence
were rewritten to read:
and find it very hard.
What have we got for all his dollars and cents?
—A pile of bottles by the fence.
in The Complete Poems. In section II, line 5
’cause this occasion’s all his fault.
was rewritten to read
this occasion’s all his fault.
5. A dedication in memory of Marjorie Carr Stevens was added in The Complete Poems.
6. A comma was added to the end of line 4 in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979
(a change not followed in this edition).
7. Omitted from the paperback edition (1965) and from The Complete Poems.
8. In the Questions of Travel (1965) version, a misprint of “self-pitying, mountains” in line 3 was corrected to read “self-pitying mountains.” Line 5, with a little church on top of one. And some warehouses
became
with a little church on top of one. And warehouses
Line 26,
a retired police lieutenant, and six feet tall,
became
a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall,
Line 31,
and leave us our Scotch and cigarettes.
became
and leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.
Also, the subscript “January 1952” was added. In her instructions to the publisher of Complete Poems, Bishop wrote, “‘Arrival at Santos’ should, of course, be used only once.… I would like to have it appear in the Questions of Travel section, in the version it appears in in Questions of Travel” (EB to Michael di Capua and Cynthia Muser, September 21, 1968, copies at Vassar
and The New York Public Library).
9. A subscript “Síto da Alcobaçinha, Fazenda Samambaia, Petrópolis” was added in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
10. In line 112, the misprint of “out at the sea” was corrected to read “out at sea,”
and an extra gap between stanzas 43 and 44 (setting off the final four stanzas) was closed in The Complete Poems. An extra gap between stanzas 45 and 46 (setting off the final two stanzas, which was Bishop’s wish) was added in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
11. Omitted from The Complete Poems but proposed for inclusion in an edition
of her prose that Bishop contemplated entitling In the Village & Other Stories or In the Village: Stories and Essays.
12. Line 13:
The world is a mist. The world is uniquely
was rewritten to read
The world is a mist. And then the world is
in The Complete Poems.
13. A subscript “November, 1951” was omitted in The Complete Poems.
14. The selection was made by Elizabeth Bishop. In a letter published in The Times Literary Supplement, Bishop responded to complaints that Chatto & Windus had omitted “In the Village” from her Selected Poems: “It is true that the publishers did not choose to include a story that appeared in my last volume of poems published in the United States. However, I was entirely responsible for the selection of poems. It is possible I was over-fussy”
(Elizabeth Bishop to the Editor, TLS, February 15, 1968, p. 157).
15. “Rain Towards Morning” and “While Someone Telephones.”
16. A subscript dated “November, 1951” is omitted in The Complete Poems.
17. With woodcuts by Ann Grifalconi.
18. In line 236, “What nothing” was revised to read “But no!” (to better reflect the Portuguese “Qual nada”) in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979. Bishop wrote this change in the margin of Eamon Grennan’s copy of The Complete Poems (1969, sixth printing 1978), and initialed the change.
19. A revision of “Oh, poor habit!” to “Oh, mean habit!” in the penultimate line was included in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
20. In line 24, “over-lapping” became “overlapping” in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979 (the second change not followed in the present edition). In Bishop’s own copy of Geography III, she canceled “the” in line 173 (“the shrivelled shoes”) and wrote “those?” in the margin, but the change was not adopted in The Complete Poems, 1927–1979.
Index of Titles and First Lines
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
About the size of an old-style dollar bill
A cold spring:
Across the floor flits the mechanical toy
After Rishikesh
Alone on the railroad track
ALONG GALEANA STREET (Octavio Paz)
Although it is a cold evening
ANAPHORA
And you never liked parties …
An endless and flooded
A new volcano has erupted
APARTMENT IN LEME
ARGUMENT
ARMADILLO, THE
ARRIVAL AT SANTOS
As far as statues go, so far there’s not
As we lie down to sleep the world turns half away
As you all know, tonight is the night of the full moon
At evening, something behind me.
At first I took it for a bird
At four o’clock
At low tide like this how sheer the water is
At night the factories
At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee
AT THE FISHHOUSES
A washing hangs upon the line
BANKS (Max Jacob)
Bed, birdcage, and a chest of drawers
Beneath that loved and celebrated breast
BIGHT, THE
BRAZIL, JANUARY 1, 1502
BRAZILIAN TRAGEDY (Manuel Bandeira)
BREAKFAST SONG
BURGLAR OF BABYLON, THE
CAPE BRETON
Carlos, keep calm, love
CASABIANCA
Caught—the bubble
CEMETERY OF CHILDHOOD (Joaquim Cardozo)
CHEMIN DE FER
CIRQUE D’HIVER
COLDER THE AIR, THE
COLD SPRING, A
CONVERSATION
COOTCHIE
Cootchie, Miss Lula’s servant, lies in marl
CRUSOE IN ENGLAND
Dawn an unsympathetic yellow.
Days that cannot bring you near
“DEAR, MY COMPASS…”
Dear, my compass
DEATH AND LIFE OF A SEVERINO, FROM THE (João Cabral de Melo Neto)
DEATH OF MIMOSO
DON’T KILL YOURSELF (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
DRUNKARD, A
Each barge on the river easily tows
Each day with so much ceremony
Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
Early, early in the morning, even before five o’clock, the mouse was
Easily through the darkened room
EDGAR ALLAN POE & THE JUKE-BOX
ELECTRICAL STORM
ELEGY FOR MARIA ALVES (Joaquim Cardozo)
END OF MARCH, THE
Enormous and solid
EXCHANGING HATS
FAMILY PORTRAIT (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
Farm afternoons, there’s much too much blue air.
FAUSTINA, OR ROCK ROSES
FILLING STATION
FIRST DEATH IN NOVA SCOTIA
FISH, THE
FIVE FLIGHTS UP
FLOOD, THE
FLORIDA
FLORIDA REVISITED
FOR A.B.
FOR GRANDFATHER
FOUR POEMS
I / CONVERSATION
II / RAIN TOWARDS MORNING
III / WHILE SOMEONE TELEPHONES
IV / O BREATH
FOUR SAMBAS (Anonymous)
From a magician’s midnight sleeve
From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning
From narrow provinces
FROM THE COUNTRY TO THE CITY
FROM TROLLOPE’S JOURNAL
GENTLEMAN OF SHALOTT, THE
GIANT SNAIL
GIANT TOAD
GOING TO THE BAKERY
GOOD-BYE—
GROVE, THE (Octavio Paz)
Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
Hammers pound there above
HANGING OF THE MOUSE, THE
HELL IS GRADUATED (Max Jacob)
Here, above
Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
He sleeps on the top of a mast
Hexahedrons of wood and glass
Hidden, oh hidden
HOUSE GUEST
How far north are you by now?
HYMN TO THE VIRGIN
I am too big, too big by far. Pity me.
I bring you now these flowers
I can make out the rigging of a schooner
I caught a tremendous fish
I complain like the flute
I dreamed that dead, and meditating
If you taste tears too often, inquisitive tongue
I got up in the night
“I HAD A BAD DREAM…”
I had a bad dream
I live only here, between your eyes and you
IMAGINARY ICEBERG, THE
I make a trip to each clock in the apartment:
IN A ROOM
INFANCY (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
In one of the Assyrian wars
INSOMNIA
Instead of gazing at the sea
In the cemetery of Childhood
In the cold, cold parlor
In the desert of Itabira
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD (Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
In the middle of the road there was a stone
IN THE WAITING ROOM
In the walled-off swimming-pool the water is perfectly flat.
INVENTORY
INVITATION TO MISS MARIANNE MOORE
In Worcester, Massachusetts
In your next letter I wish you’d say
It finds the park first, and the trees
“IT IS MARVELLOUS TO WAKE UP TOGETHER…”
It is marvellous to wake up together
It is so peaceful on the ceiling!
It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
It was the hour when night makes the mountains lament
I will be good; I will be good.
I will not play the slot-machine.
I would like my last poem thus
