Recently my colleague at the Bryn Mawr Bookstore gave me a
present: a copy of the letter that Elizabeth Bishop wrote to her in 1978. When Jess told me that she knew Bishop and
that Bishop had written to her, I hoped for something meaty. Instead, the letter is basically a pleasant
rejection of further contact. There is
the beautiful signature in the characteristic cramped and unreadable
handwriting. But that's basically all there is:
Dear Jessica,
Warren House has forwarded your note to me. As you probably know, I am no longer teaching
at Harvard, and this year - from now until September 1979, at least - I am not
teaching at all. I want very much to
spend all my time on work of my own, so I am not doing any advising about
writing, reading manuscripts, etc. I am
sorry I can't help you but I'm sure there are other people in this part of the
world who can.
To have had a poem in The New Republic is very good at your age. So, congratulations - and just keep writing.
With all best wishes,
Elizabeth Bishop
At first I felt sad for Jess that this was it. No invitation for tea, or to go to the New
York Zoo? (That was where Marianne Moore
and Elizabeth Bishop had one of their first dates). But the word of encouragement about The New
Republic was a nice touch. And you know
what? Sometimes it's OK to be
ignored--it makes you feel scrappy.
For some reason, reading this letter and seeing Bishop's
signature in the flesh reminded me of Barbara Johnson's comments on my disaster
of a final paper that I wrote for her poetry seminar senior year. The paper I handed in was 4 pages shorter
than the minimum page requirement, didn't have a thesis, and accidentally I left two pages of notes trailing at the end. God
help me. BJ has a serious neurodegenerative
disease and was then already pretty frail, her handwriting was shaky, and she
had trouble speaking for long periods of time. She returned the paper and her comments in a manila envelope with my
name scrawled on the front. On the
comments sheet there is a drop of something brown and it looks like I cried
tears of blood when I was reading it.
I've kept the comments partly because I loved BJ, and also
because because of some self-flagellating need to remind myself that in college
I was lazy and dumb and that I can never allow myself to be that way
again. Since I've already gone this
far, I will include an excerpt of the comments here for your delectation and my
further self-flagellation.
Dear Beccah,
The
enclosed must be a non-final draft--there are some obvious signs of
unfinishedness. I think what you say
about essentialism and the image of the androgyne is very good [I was writing
about Adrienne Rich's poem "The Stranger"]. But then you conflate a vision of what might
be with the perspective of what is, and that seems to me to combine two things
that don't go together....She may imagine transcending gender in too
essentialized a way, but it is irrelevant to this vision what is realistic or
what most people think.
And then there's more about the paper that I won't subject
you to, and it ends with: "I'd like to know how this would be
finished. Best, Barbara." Except the "Barbara" part is in
that careful frail handwriting.
It's funny because reading this over now, 2 years later, I
realize that these comments are not that bad. She acknowledges that the paper is unfinished--but what was I expecting? Did I somehow think that she wouldn't see the
pages of notes at the end that say things like MUST RESPOND TO MESSIANIC
UNDERTONES and WHY PEOPLE ONLY IN THE SECOND STANZA? Despite the paper’s wretchedness, she is
actually almost encouraging. It's
nothing short of a miracle.
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