Paths to Knowing: Poetry and Research
Elizabeth Bishop was a prominent 20th century poet, her travels to other countries often resulted in the exchange of ideas, language, poetic forms, and more between herself and other prominent poets of the day. In 1942, her trip to Mexico lead to several important meetings, but one chance meeting on a plane from Havana to Mérida opens an interesting question for the researcher—is poetry research? On this plane, Bishop saw the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda was unknown to Bishop at the time, but their subsequent meetings would later spur the growth and development of a distinct poem within her poetic cannon: "An Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore." This poem is a pastiche of the somber elegy by Neruda “Alberto Rojas Jiménez viene volando” written in memoriam of his dead friend. Bishop first publishes her joyous ode many years after her original interactions with Neruda.
The idea of scientific research seems far off from the deeply emotional process of poetic ode or elegy, but at the core of this project the similarities between research and composition are discovered. If one begins to understand research as a process or a method that can be generally defined and applied across a wide variety of subjects, one can then allow the focus to shift from the expected scientific rationale to a poetic one. Poetry, like science, allows a person to make observations of the broad and abstract, to focus onto that nebulous idea or image and then create specificity. Trading microscopes for rhyming dictionaries highlights a clear connection between the two modes of research. Through taking in Neruda’s elegy, and transforming it into an ode, Bishop undergoes a research process best corroborated by Paul Magee from the University of Canberra. Magee’s paper lays the groundwork for the concept of poetry as research and concludes with “For what is academic speech, really, if not an attempt to rein that contradictory multiple in and pretend it is one (Magee, 2009)?” This is at heart, the core of this project, to make the seemingly contradictory ideas of poetry and research into one.
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie NY
Bishop attended Vassar College, graduating in 1934. Here she founded a rebel student publication known as “Con Spirito.” She originally began college intending to major in Music with hopes of being a composer, but switched to English during her sophomore year. She took several Spanish classes during her time in college. Through the college librarian at the time, Bishop was introduced to Ms. Marianne Moore, the poet and writer who would become her mentor.
Key West, Florida, USA
624 White Street was the address of her home in Key West FL. She lived here for 9 years in total beginning in 1938, while traveling around the US and Mexico. She continued to brush up her Spanish throughout her life via lessons.
Havana, Cuba
Bishop’s early morning flight to Mexico stopped here for one day on April 7th 1942. She found the city of Havana itself to be a little unpleasant, in her travel journal she remarked that it is “not at all gay or worldly,” and that “the suburbs are hideous.” Coincidentally, Neruda was finishing several weeks of residency in Havana, and had booked the same flight to Mexico. It is on this flight that she first saw Pablo Neruda sleeping on the plane with his head falling into the aisle according to her 1979 interview.
Mérida, Mexico
Bishop’s first stop in Mexico. She and Neruda landed here on April 8th of 1942 and both stayed in the Casa Cámara, a luxurious hotel though they were traveling separately. The image above is a painting she created showing the view from the roof of the hotel. In this hotel they spoke regarding the details of a potential trip to Chichen Itza. She agreed to split the cost with him and they made the trip in the following days. She spent about a month in Mérida where she took lessons under a private tutor in Spanish that involved several trips to a local movie theater.
Chichen Itza, Mexico
Bishop and Neruda ventured to Chichen Itza with their respective partners. Neruda claims in his memoirs that all four of them reached the top of the pyramid. Though Bishop asserts in her marginalia to the memoirs that he “never climbed any pyramid” and instead sat at the bottom and drank beer while the three women climbed to the top.
Mexico City, Mexico
Bishop came to the capital city on May 5th. She then begins to reside within the city at 7 Calle Paris. This home was found for her by Neruda and it was located in a more fashionable part of the city. She also purchased a Spanish-English dictionary and a book of Neruda's poetry, which contained "Alberto Rojas Jiménez viene volando." She states in her 1979 interview that after this, she and Neruda continued to meet up to talk, drink, and have fun throughout the following months.
7 Calle Paris, Mexico City, Mexico
May 14th, 1942 Bishop received a letter from Marianne Moore at this address, indicating a more permanent residence. In her return letter she remarks that the architecture and the overall design of the neighborhood reminds her of Paris, even down to the name of her street.
Cuernavaca, Mexico
Bishop travels here in August of 1942, and she remains here for a portion of her trip. Neruda introduced her to a Spanish poet José Herrera-Petere and his wife Carmen. Herrera-Petere’s letters to Bishop indicate that he was tutoring her in Spanish, as his letters indicate the different grammatical changes and tenses used as he told stories about his life.Carmen also wrote several letters to Bishop discussing her son Emilio and their holiday plans. The photo above is a post card depicting Cuernavaca.
Las Grutas, Mexico
Bishop visits these caves, though remarks in her travel journal that the colored lighting makes them feel more like a “Disney attraction” than any great natural wonder. She had previously read about them in the context of a description of a former queen and her visit to the caves. Bishop is deeply disappointed that the tour is more for show, and not particularly scientific and expands on this disappointment in her letters to Marianne Moore.
Teotihuacán, Mexico
Bishop visited here on September 13th 1942. She wrote several postcards to Marianne Moore describing her trip and the scenes around her.
Oaxaca, Mexico
Bishop sent a letter from the Hotel Ruiz in Oaxaca on the 28th of September stating her intent to leave Mexico in the coming days. This was another luxury hotel, and her travel notebook indicates that she gave meticulous attention to the cost of her daily wares such as cigarettes.
Mexico City, Mexico
Bishop had dinner here with Neruda where she was witness to a very famous scene. She is present when Neruda gave a toast to "Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin," and his subsequent attack by Nazis at the bar of the restaurant they were in.
Key West, Florida, USA
Bishop returned to Key West after her trip and finds herself incapacitated by alcoholism and illness, unable to write or others work for several months.
Manhattan, New York, USA
Bishop returned to NYC in early-mid October of 1944 where she continued to write and visit Marianne Moore.
Drafts of “Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore”
Four years after the trip, Bishop was invited to write a poem as an introduction to Marianne Moore for a copy of the Quarterly Review of Literature: "The Marianne Moore Edition" she based the poem on Neruda's elegy, and below are her original drafts of the poem aptly named "An Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore."
The drafts of her poem come together relatively quickly for Bishop, who is usually tormented by her poems. The differences between the first draft and final draft are mostly regarding structure, and Neruda's famous "come flying" appears in proper form in draft two. She plays with the image of Moore "flying in a cloud of fiery pale chemicals," and if that should come before or after her images of "blue drums." Her attention to minute detail and rhythm echoes throughout her drafting process, and can be seen dramatically altering stanzas up until the final draft. By the final draft held in the Vassar College Archives, the poem retains much of its published form and nature, with seemingly only a few minor difference made in the process of publication.
Alberto Rojas Giménez viene volando
Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore | Work in Progress
Is Poetry Research?
This timeline may at first seem nebulous to the question “is poetry research?” but upon further study, Bishops interactions with people while in Mexico, both well known and not, serve as the basis for many of her later works. She claims that she began drafting several of her poems while in Mexico.
Bishop writes from reality as she understands it, and her connection to Mexico and the people she met are no exception. This again can be seen in her poem “Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore.” What first appears as only a structural similarity between “Vienes volando,” in Neruda’s somber elegy and “Come flying,” in Bishop's more light hearted ode, becomes much deeper when translating the Neruda poem, one finds many linguistic similarities between scenes described in verse.
Bishops description of “malignant movies” and of Moore’s “beautiful ears” evoke Neruda’s “sobre cines y túneles y orejas.” These connections are not simply relations in form, but relations in language. Bishop not only borrows Neruda's refrain of “come flying,” but his more intricate details are sourced as well. Indicating that she had kept this poem in mind, and perhaps on hand during her drafting process. Furthermore, she uses Neruda’s original poem as a tool to communicate the happiness and joy her friend and mentor brings her. Research is a process, and poetry is the result, requiring Bishop to understand language use and its metrics to recombine structures traditionally used for mourning into structures now used for joy. She knew the poem intimately, and could not have completed her ode without this deep knowledge. She often purchased bilingual editions of Neruda's works. In reviewing the archives, we found evidence of very close readings of his poetry and forceful corrections of what she believed to be poor translations. Her copies of his published poetry are rife with marginalia and disdain for poor translation and what results in unforgivably bad poetry.
There is still much to be done in regards to this project, additional fragments of knowledge gained through our work indicate a deeper connection to Mexico than previously thought. The lack of academic interest dedicated to her time spent in Mexico remains notable. Though we have clarified the identity of her Spanish tutor, José Herrera-Petere, the connection between his family and Bishop is equally significant to her time in Mexico, and has potential to be explored further. Her travel journal has equal potential for continued study. The connection between Bishop and Neruda grows, and then becomes fraught later in their lives. Within Bishops personal library, several copies of his books were found, and though completing a full analysis of these books and their marginalia remains outside the full scope of this project due to scale and time, there is great potential for a continued study of their connection in these volumes.
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