How blessed Elizabeth Bishop was to excel as a modern poet and painter. It means she had an ability to set a scene in a vivid way. I find there is movement to her poetry much like a restless traveler who hasn’t quite figured out where home is, but can still find some happiness and interest in a specific moment.
Elizabeth Bishop received the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring. A National Book Award and other honors followed.
Here is “The Wave” written in 1929 at the age of eighteen, before college at Vassar. Sure, she is known for far more famous works, but in these three minutes of escape try to wonder what she was feeling as a young woman. Find the wonder and spirit of possibility in her phrasing.
A shining wave
Fills all the skies.
Bright shadows float
Across the land.
See, crystal clear,
It’s helmet rise!
And now the motion
Of a hand,
A tiny quickening
Of the heart,
And it will fall
And nothing more
Can keep the sea and land apart.
How still, how blinding is the light!
Spellbound and golden shines the foam.
Without a gesture
Or a word
It cannot break;
The wing must turn,
And nest again
The radiant bird,
The wave, the wonder, go back home.
We do not move,
We do not flee.
We see it shudder, lightening bright,
And dully double
On the sea,
We are too innocent and wise,
We laugh into each other’s eyes
