There’s Nothing More Embarrassing than Being a Poet, Really

Our Art of Poetry interview with Elizabeth Bishop.

The Paris Review Redux: free interviews, stories, poems, and art from the archives of The Paris Review. View this email in your browser Photo by Alice Helen Methfessel, courtesy of Frank Bidart. "Elizabeth Bishop delighted in the postcard," writes Langdon Hammer in a piece we published last week. "It suited her poetic subject matter and her way of life—this poet of travel who was more often on the move than at home, 'wherever that may be,' as she put it in her poem 'Questions of Travel.'" This week, we're unlocking our Art of Poetry interview with Bishop, which was published in the Summer 1981 issue of the Review. INTERVIEW The Art of Poetry No. 27 Elizabeth Bishop INTERVIEWER Do many strangers send you poems? BISHOP Yes. It's very hard to know what to do. Sometimes I answer. I had a fan letter the other day, and it was adorable. It was in this childish handwriting. His name was Jimmy Sparks and he was in the sixth grade. He said his class was putting together a booklet of poems and he liked my poems very much—he mentioned three—because they rhymed and because they were about nature. His letter was so cute I did send him a postcard. I think he was supposed to ask me to send a handwritten poem or photograph—schools do this all the time—but he didn't say anything like that, and I'm sure he forgot his mission. From issue no. 80 (Summer 1981) Copyright © 2023 The Paris Review. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: The Paris Review 544 West 27th Street 3rd Floor New York, New York 10001 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe, if you must.