Elizabeth Bishop Biography

Elizabeth Bishop was not only one of the most American famous poets, but
New York Times also referred her to be one of the most important American poets.
Throw back to February 1911; Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester,
Massachusetts. At first, her life was consisted of three warmly people: her father, her
mother, and herself. Nevertheless, before Elizabeth turned one, her father had died
among the sadness of Bishops family; Elizabeth, when she was grown up, put her
feeling of her lost in her poem, First Death in Nova Scotia. Later on, when Elizabeth
was five years old, her mother got a mentally sickness and was sent to mental
hospital. After that, Elizabeth never her mother again, so she wrote In The Village
for her mother while she was living with her grandmother. Her life was tough when
she was young. Elizabeth was sent to her fathers wealthier family in Worcester,
Massachusetts. She attended school in Worcester where it was the same place that her
first poems were released in a student magazine.
The poet Marianne Moore induced Elizabeth to poem; and Marianne also
appeared in Elizabeths poems, which are Dear Miss Moore and Dear Marianne.
Moreover, she was introduced to Robert Lowell before they became best friend.
Elizabeth Bishop started travelling after she got the inheritance from her
father. She went to live in France for seven years, and then came back to United State
and bought a house in Florida. During her thirty-eighth-year-old, Elizabeth won the
Houghton Mifflin Prize; she made a thousand copies of her first book, North &
South. After that, she started travelling again and wrote lots of poem without
forgetting to put her sights, her experience, her feelings, and her perspective of nature
and things in her poem everywhere she had visited.

Elizabeths poems could not stop being mentioned to, even though she started
a lesbian relationship with Lota de Macedo Soares. Hence, she preferred her style of
her poems to be feminist. Elizabeth had received so many awards and honors, and
became the first women who received Neustadt International Prize for Literature; she
kept publishing her books. In 1976, she distributed her last book, Geography III.
When Elizabeth was sixty-eight, a cerebral aneurysm had taken her life; she
died peacefully in her apartment in Boston. Although her body had buried in the
grave, but her name and her accomplishments will be last forever in everyones mind.

Lullaby For The Cat Elizabeth Bishop

Minnow, go to sleep and dream,

Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasantest surprise.
Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
Just cooperate,
Not a kitten shall be drowned
In the Marxist State.
Joy and Love will both be yours,
Minnow, don't be glum.
Happy days are coming soon -Sleep, and let them come...

* Please read my analysis before you judge this poem :) *

Analysis

When I finished reading this poem, the first picture that came into my mind is
a growing kitten that is lying on its bed and listening to its owner sound. The owner
whispers to the kitten with gently soft sound to make it feel calm. I think the kitten
just faced something horrible, for instance, the hunting of a very huge dog, and it was
nearly to be the dogs dinner, so it made the kitten frighten. The owner could feel the
kittens feeling, and then she takes the kitten to sleep.
All of these is everyone would think of when they read this poem. You might
think that this is just one of a short and boring kitten poem. Lullaby For The Cat
uses image and connotation to represent its concept, which is NOT tiny little kitten
thing, but deep down inside this poem, it is beyond a kitten.
What I mean is this poem is giving us an imagery of Communism.
According to line 6, the speaker mentioned to Marxist State, which is a worldview
of societal theories that uses a historical materialism. It once had much influence in
Communism state. From that, there is no wonder if this poem would describe
Communist. Related to history and mostly peoples thoughts, communism is a selfish
country that always thinks of itself and does not care what other people think since it
is one of the reason to started World War. Especially, the leader of every communism
country; they does not except freedom. In the first stanza, the poet creates a big
picture of a child, since the speaker uses Minnow, that is about to go to sleep, and
there are some people forcing the child to follow what they want. Following, when the
speaker put drop the frown, it feels like they are compelling a child to faith in them;
and cooperate is to tell that you MUST do what I want because this place, in
communism land, shall have no unfaithful person. Next stanza, they are talking about

Joy and Love, actually there is no completely joyful and freely love in communism
countries. They just put on an act to make people become blind and believe.
Moreover, it can mean that if you follow my structure, you will live in this place
peacefully. Happy days will come, if you do what I want, exactly, it will come, so go
ahead and stand on my side by now can describe last two sentences the best. The
pronoun they that I have mentioned to is meant to the head of the communism
country. I always heard of what the leader of communism did, particularly when they
make people be unconscious. They only spread out the good things of them but not
their disadvantage. This poem is mostly like a story of a person that represses his/her
feeling about growing in communism country. The poet who created this poem,
Elizabeth Bishop, had been travelling to so many places when she was alive, so she
might had seen the idea of communism while she was travelling; then created this
poem. I strongly agree with the name of this poem because the word lullaby is the
feeling of this poem, but it is a HAUNTING lullaby for the communisms growing
generation. Therefore, if they keep telling and making children trust in communism,
communists will still exist; and if communism last forever, the heirs that will run the
nation for the next generation will be heartless, as same as the communism leader
always be.

References
-

Colwell, A. (2000, February). Elizabeth Bishop. Retrieved May 12, 2015,

from http://and.orb/articles/16/16-01885.html
Unknown. (n.d.). Lullaby For the Cat. Retrieved May 12, 2015, from

http://allpoetry.com/Lullaby-For-the-Cat
DiYanni, Robert. (n.d.). Glossary of Poetic Terms. Retrieved May 12, 2015,
from
http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0072405228/student_view0/poetic_glos
sary.html

Ollman, B. (n.d.). What is Marxism?. Retrieved May 12, 2015, from

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/what_is_marxism.php
Unknown. (n.d.). Elizabeth Bishop American Poet. Retrieved May 13, 2015,
from http://projects.vassar.edu/bishop/