Intro to Elizabeth Bishop's Collected Poems

Intro to Elizabeth Bishop's Collected Poems [cobbled together from a few sources]: ---

Bishop’s first book of poems, North & South, is teeming with poems that emanate from her prodigious travels in France, Spain, Africa, Ireland, and Italy. Her Father died when she was young, and her mother was committed to a mental institution, so she lived with her grandparents in Nova Scotia. Her poetry avoids confessionalism and focuses on her interpretations of the physical world. For many years, she lived in Brazil and communicated to friends in America only by letter. She wrote slowly and published sparingly, but she was possessed of technical brilliance and formal variety. She taught at Harvard for seven years.