Elizabeth Bishop and the New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence

This superbly edited collection traces the correspondence between poet Bishop and her editors at the New Yorker—Katharine S. White (wife of E.B. White) and Howard Moss—from 1934 to 1979. Many of Bishop's finest poems were first published in the New Yorker. These were the days of manual typewriters, carbon copies, and Varitype working proofs. The letters often capture the back and forth from editor and publisher to writer concentrating on the nitty-gritty of punctuation and word choice. "Punctuation is my Waterloo," Bishop bemoans. The "real world" rarely intrudes, for example, a fleeting reference to the 1960 presidential campaign. When White departs as poetry-and-fiction editor in 1956, taking her warm and chatty approach with her, Bishop's initial disappointment is clear. Over time she warms up to Howard Moss and vice versa, even to the point of his eventual purchase of her cherished clavichord. He pleads: "Please send some poems!" This is a fascinating, placid, and inevitably repetitious correspondence that ought to be assigned to all aspiring editors of poetry. (Illus. not seen) (Feb.)