Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast Hardcover – February 7, 2017

Wonderful biography of Pulitzer-prize-winning 20th century poet and writer Elizabeth Bishop by an extraordinarily gifted Pulitzer-prize-winning biographer. Megan Marshall shows her mesmerizing story-telling skills as she succeeds not only at bringing Bishop's life story into sharp focus, including a sensitively shaded treatment of her subject's homosexual affairs and alcoholism, but also at breaking up the story of Bishop's life with stunning autobiographical chapters recounting her own struggles as a young poet in Harvard seminars with Bishop herself, Robert Lowell and Robert Fitzgerald. That Marshall actually studied under Bishop and writes so vividly of her first-hand interactions with her makes her portrayal of this under-appreciated writer totally compelling. Especially enjoyable for me was the colorful and accurate treatment of mid-century Brazil where Bishop spent fifteen important years as I also lived there around that time as a teenager. My only negative comment is that I wish Marshall had done more to capture Bishop's wry sense of humor which comes through so strongly in both Bishop's poetry and prose. But overall, this biography gets my highest rating. It motivated me to go back, with new appreciation and fuller understanding, to Elizabeth Bishop's published works and re-read her stuff, and isn't that the mark of a completely successful biography?

Recently, having just read the poems of Elizabeth Bishop and being mightily impressed by them (surely she is one of the finest American poets), I looked into what sort of biographical or secondary works were available. I saw that this book had just been published. Although not perfect, Megan Marshall's biography has provided me with a good sense of Elizabeth Bishop.I learned that Bishop (b. 1911) had a very difficult childhood. Her father died when she was eight months old, and soon thereafter her mother became so mentally unstable that she had to be institutionalized for the rest of her life. Elizabeth was shunted around among maternal grandparents, paternal grandparents, and one of her mother's sisters, whose sadistic husband abused Elizabeth both mentally and physically. Fortunately, her father had left sufficient money in a trust fund that she was able to attend a very good girl's preparatory school and then Vassar College.As a girl and as a young woman, she was shy and lonely (quite understandably). Serendipitously, however, she had been exposed quite young to poetry of quality and she began to seek out and take comfort from poetry, first reading it and then writing it. In the words of Megan Marshall, her poems became "charms against the loneliness they often expressed."Bishop's published output was modest. But she was a consummate craftsman. Her credo was "never to try to publish anything until I thought I'd done my best with it, no matter how many years it took--or never to publish at all." That, coupled with superb poetic instincts and skills, meant that Bishop ended up doing something that, in the words of Randall Jarrell, was both "theoretically and practically impossible" -- namely, "writing nothing but good poems."As this book reveals, virtually all of Bishop's poems are grounded in personal experience. Marshall doesn't engage in much analysis of the poems (thankfully), but for many of the poems she does provide the background and circumstances that gave rise to them. For me, these were the best parts of the book, especially for favorite poems such as "A Miracle for Breakfast", "In the Waiting Room", "At the Fishhouses", and "The Moose".Bishop's intimate relationships (at least those mentioned in the book) were all with women, although Bishop herself did not want to be categorized as a lesbian. She didn't even like being referred to as a female poet, and she declined permission for any of her poems to be included in anthologies of female poets. Her position was that men and women "do not write differently", and that "literature is literature, no matter who produces it."Much of this biography concerns Bishop's extended intimate relationships with five different women. For me, the emotional highs and lows of these relationships became wearying. Another dominating theme is Bishop's weakness for alcohol and the assorted physical problems that plagued her; this too became tedious. On the more positive side, there also is considerable discussion of friendships with other poets, the earliest such one being with Marianne Moore and the closest and most important being with Robert Lowell.Megan Marshall writes ELIZABETH BISHOP in a distinctive fashion, which for the most part is engaging. She does have a penchant for advancing the narrative with suggestive questions that is at times irksome, and for me she engages a little too much in speculation.The biography is cleverly presented in six chapters, each titled with a different one of the six end words from Bishop's marvelous sestina "A Miracle for Breakfast". Between each chapter as well as at the beginning and end of the biography, Marshall writes about her own life. Some of this autobiographical material is quite relevant, inasmuch as Marshall took a course with Elizabeth Bishop on Advanced Verse Writing while she was at Harvard/Radcliffe in 1976; however some of it (such as that dealing with Marshall's parents or her affair with a "famous Boston writer") should have been relegated to some other book.

Megan Marshall has broken new ground in this fascinating and poignant memoir by inserting short pieces about her own life that echo what was occurring many years earlier in Bishop's, starting with the time period just before Marshall was in the poet's class and after. These very personal touch points— and how brave to reveal one's own life so honestly—expand our understanding of Elizabeth Bishop, providing rich depth that has sent me to all the poems. I was familiar with only a few from anthologies. As she has demonstrated in The Peabody Sisters and Margaret Fuller books, Marshall writes beautifully and yes, page turners. A Miracle for Breakfast surpasses both previous books and is a triumph.

Interesting biography of E. Bishop written by a former student of hers and award winning author in her own right. I found the combination of the author's experience as a student and growing up in Pasadena and Bishops' life to be engaging

A superbly structured book that uses the sestina form of poetry, based on Bishop's poem "A Miracle for Breakfast," to structure a biography of her life. Marshall weaves in very short memoirs of her experiences with Bishop (who was her teacher) so that we can understand the relationship of the biographer to her subject. Disregard the reviewers who didn't even bother to understand the gorgeous architecture of this book. It is a beautifully written and deeply researched poetic homage. The way the sestina format comes together in the last paragraph took my breath away.

Well written bio of the tempestuous poet. The author intermingles her experiences with Bishop into the narrative. Well done!

I loved this book. Marshall's writing is beautiful and compelling. I thought the short sections about Marshall's own life and her experiences with Bishop (as her student) were particularly fascinating. I really enjoyed seeing Bishop as a teacher and as a woman poet at Harvard. I could not put this book down. I read it like it was a beach novel. It is a page turner! Another tour de force by Marshall.

The book was excellent and it arrived a few days before it was due, great service, I will definitely order more books

Loved this book!

Some interesting biographical details assembled in this biography; maybe would have liked to have seen more on the poetry

Wonderful book