No further proof is necessary to show that Bishop—still not widely known beyond literary circles at the time of her death in 1979—has, posthumously in the last three decades, become one of America’s most popular 20th-century poets, but this hefty and handsome volume from the Library of America certainly clinches the deal. Between its covers one can find most of the perfectionist author’s oeuvre
, more than enough to confirm Bishop as a master at revealing the complexity of simple, often painful things (“I said to myself: three days/ and you’ll be seven years old./ I was saying it to stop/ the sensation of falling off the round, turning world/ into cold, blue-black space./ But I felt: you are an I
, you are an Elizabeth
”). All the poems gathered in the now-classic Collected Poems
are here, as are the unpublished drafts released in 2006’s controversial Edgar Allen Poe and the Jukebox
. The memoir and fiction pieces of Collected Prose
are also reprinted, along with a few other pieces of scattered nonfiction, as well as a generous selection of Bishop’s enthralling letters. Bishop’s work is deeply compassionate and necessary reading, and now almost all of it can be found in one place. (Feb)
