PositiveLambda LiteraryThe life story of the poet Elizabeth Bishop would be enthralling even without her poetry. For anyone seeking an introduction to her work, this insightful new biography is a great place to start ... In addition to narrating Bishop’s wrenching, ultimately victorious life, Travisano performs an even greater service for the general reader with little knowledge of how poetry is made or the power it can wield. As someone who has immersed himself in Bishop studies over the four decades since her death, Travisano is an ideal guide to her major poems, all of which he places in the context of her life at the moment of their creation ... Travisano’s narrative of the death of Bishop’s lover illustrates one of the book’s great strengths. In cases where the surviving evidence fails to establish an irrefutable reading of events, Travisano resists the temptation to draw his own conclusions...Indeed his scrupulous reticence on such matters can lend his prose a slightly bloodless quality when set against the work of other literary biographers who veer into fictionalized imaginings of their subjects’ inner lives ... This biography bears witness to Bishop’s genius for friendship and a life full of adventure and daring.
