Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop

by Thomas J. Travisano

An illuminating new biography of one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Bishop

"Love Unknown points movingly to the many relationships that moored Bishop, keeping her together even as life--and her own self-destructive tendencies--threatened to split her apart." --The Wall Street Journal

Elizabeth Bishop's friend James Merrill once observed that "Elizabeth had more talent for life--and for poetry--than anyone else I've known." This new biography reveals just how she learned to marry her talent for life with her talent for writing in order to create a brilliant array of poems, prose, and letters--a remarkable body of work that would make her one of America's most beloved and celebrated poets. In Love Unknown, Thomas Travisano, founding president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society, tells the story of the famous poet and traveler's life.

Bishop moved through extraordinary mid-twentieth century worlds with relationships among an extensive international array of literati, visual artists, musicians, scholars, and politicians--along with a cosmopolitan gay underground that was then nearly invisible to the dominant culture. Drawing on fresh interviews and newly discovered manuscript materials, Travisano illuminates that the "art of losing" that Bishop celebrated with such poignant irony in her poem, "One Art," perhaps her most famous, was linked in equal part to an "art of finding," that Bishop's art and life was devoted to the sort of encounters and epiphanies that so often appear in her work.

Genres: Biography, Poetry, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Literary Fiction, Literary Criticism

432 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2019

Reviews

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Unknown is a steady, conventional biography of Elizabeth Bishop. It comes 41 years after her death and follows several other biographies and critical studies. It offers nothing new. I don't think Travisano presents any new details of her life. There are no fresh perspectives on her psychology or motivations, and perhaps we shouldn't be surprised or disappointed given all that's been written about her. Still, this is a biography to enjoy, a dependable, useful account of her life to remind us what a lovely woman she was. Poet, too, of course (she insisted on distinguishing between woman and poet), and the discussion here of her poetry is the book's less-evident strength because the interpretation of the poetry can offer some subjectivity the particulars of the life can't. One result of reading Travisano's biography may be to nudge a reader to dive into another mother lode of Bishop's oeuvre, her vast body of letters, and from there into exploring some of the writers close to her: Robert Lowell, Frank Bidart, James Merrill.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great bio. He came up with some new info - especially about her early life - that is most interesting.

[Ellen Cutler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would certainly not have chosen this book for myself so I am so glad my husband gave it to me as a gift!

I am mildly familiar with the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and like it. I was certainly unfamiliar with her life story and surprised by the many experiences we shared. My mother was also hospitalized with mental illness for a number of years, although she fortunately was able to reenter life and live it fully. (And, as a matter of fact, Robert Lowell, Bishop's beloved "Cal," was an occasional bridge partner of my mother at McLean Hospital.) I too was sent to boarding school, largely to ensure that I received care as well as an education. Vassar is known to me as the alma mater of friends. I read Mary McCarthy's "The Group" when I was in my late teens and had no idea of how familiar that circle of women should have been to me.

This is a wonderful book in many ways, but it also leaves me dissatisfied. It is an evocative narrative of a woman's complicated life and adventures, and a rather good introduction to her verse and her importance as a poet. At the same time, Thomas Travisano seems discomfited by who she really was.

He edges around her lesbian identity and gets particularly antsy when the suggestion of a more gender fluid sexuality arises. While Biship's longest and greatest love affair was with the Brazilian Lota de Macedo Soares, her peer in age and accomplishments, concurrent and subsequent love affairs were with much younger women, those a generation or more her junior, several of whom seemed to be bisexual rather than lesbian. We have learned to cast an analytical eye on relationships between very young women and much older men, especially when the men are their professors or their supervisors in business. The age gap and its patterns in Bishop's lovelife is simply never addressed.

There is considerable discussion of specific poems, and extracts are included in the text, but I would have appreciated an appendix with the poems because it was hard to follow the exegesis as I often simply didn't get the author's allusions or have a sense of the poems to start with.

Finally, while I find the book well organized, I don't think Travisano is an especially felicitous writer. He can't seem to settle on a way of naming people: how often should the reader be reminded that Lota's last name was Macedo de Soares or that Alice was Alice Methfessel? In trying to provide a complete summary of Bishop's childhood and adolescence, and the traumas that marked them, Travisano again tends to circle around and repeat himself. His chronology is not always smooth and sequential yet he spends more time clarifying names than dates.

Certainly I was left wanting more in the matter of Bishop's travels. Guess I will just have to read the poems.

I think this book, beyond its appeal to Elizabeth Bishop aficionados, is fascinating for the insights (intended or not) into twentieth century women, women artists, and members of the LGBTQ community it offers. To a person of a certain age, such as myself, there was a great deal that felt like shared experience--and not just because I can envision her homes on Brattle Street in Cambridge or Lewis Wharf in Boston.

Pretty good stuff.

[AcademicEditor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an expertly researched and lovingly told biography of a fascinating literary figure. The hardships that Elizabeth Bishop faced began even before her birth, as her parents' issues cast a long shadow into her life. Indeed, she faced far more than her fair share of troubles, yet maintained a a wit and playfulness even during the darkest of times. The book is also a fascinating exploration of the poetic mind, tracing how Bishop transformed real-life events into poems, often changing details and revisiting key scenes over and over even as decades passed.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC!

[Sarah Giragosian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Unknown is a sensitive portrait of Bishop, perhaps one of the best of all of the biographies, and Travisano addresses not just the major events of her life, but the lesser known periods as well. He also explores the understudied poems, drafts and fragments with nuance and generosity. Some of the biographies that I've read in the past have painted Bishop as fragile and in need of protection, but a much more resilient, adventurous Bishop emerges in Travisano's book. It is the Bishop who-- in spite of her vulnerabilities, her ailments, and anxiety--traveled the world and wrote poems like "The Shampoo" even after living and working in the nerve center of the Lavender Scare.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a joy to spend time with Elizabeth!

[grace]

JPO STEP TWO: DONE ✅✅

“i’m nothing but a dreamer and a useless rebel”

this functioned as a great introductory to E.B.’s life, and has only made me love her more. i’ll be a fan forever.

xoxo

(might have to buy some sort of anthology of her letters after reading this)

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading nonfiction is slow-going for me. It doesn't have the same can't-put-me-down effect that good fiction has, so this book took me over a month to finish. It's my second Bishop biography, after Millier's, and it's great. Bishop is--inspiring. Travisano, the author of this biography, knows her life and her poetry well, and it shows. A few implications made me a bit uncomfortable, particularly attempts to link personality traits and behaviors to child psychological trauma, but they weren't enough to make me put down the book. If you like Bishop, if you're even remotely interested in the way an amazing poet's amazing life influenced her work (and vice versa), pick this one up.

[Thomas J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A definitive biography–cum–literary study of Elizabeth Bishop… Travisano’s essential volume illuminates Bishop’s life and, most valuably,
her work.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“As founding president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society, it is not surprising that Travisano has an intimate grasp of Bishop’s life and poetry. What is surprising is how utterly captivating his biography is, let alone his illuminating, interwoven analysis of her work.”
—Booklist, Starred Review

“An authoritative and sensitive biography…A finely textured portrait of an acclaimed poet.”
—Kirkus Reviews

[Caroline Meehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this account of Elizabeth Bishop's fascinating life. So much about it that I didn't know- and which helps put many of her poems into context. I probably could have done with slightly less poetry explication that made it feel a bit like a term paper at times, but overall- this was a great read- for fans and people unfamiliar with her work.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful exploration of Elizabeth Bishop's life attuned to the small details and complex relationships at the heart of her poetry.

[LD]

Gorgeous biography that made me run out and buy everything she has ever written.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a simply marvelous biography, written with great affection & obvious admiration. So many references to the authors work tell the story in her own words. A truly well done book!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Will send me back to the poetry, and to look for the prose! Thanks for this, Prof. Travisano!

[Robert Walkley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite biography of Bishop. It gets me interested in all facets of her and makes me want to read her poems again.

[Referencerocks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bishop is one of the great loves of my life. This biography was wonderful.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having completed the book, I can't decide whether I liked it or not. One Goodreads reviewer said it was a "steady, conventional biography" which I agree, but also found annoying. After all, it went into way too much detail about her childhood, occasionally foreshadowing some future connection, but never really connecting in any significant way later in the book. I think it could have been greatly improved using a different organization, perhaps a thematical one rather than chronological wherein it plods steadily towards her tombstone. I was also surprised and disappointed by the lack of coverage of her poetry itself. Perhaps Travisano decided to give a nod to Bishop's disdain of academic criticism, but there are still many other ways of discussing and illuminating her work he could have used to connect with her life. For example, her relationship with Marianne Moore was a missed opportunity even though it was explored somewhat; that is, only superficially. I felt by the end of the biography I knew a lot of information about Bishop but not really who she was, with the exception of parts of the story about her relationships with Soares and Lowell. That is, it feels like knowing about a cousin or neighbor or friend at school; you know some things but not deeply overall. Having said all that though, I think it is worth reading (though you may have to force yourself to get through the first part).

[Iulia · Rating 3 out of 5]

An uneven book - it started off really strong and then became rather plodding in a 'she went there, did that, met such as such person' kind of way, not all of which bears much on Bishop's work. I'm not interested in reading a log of every movement Bishop undertook, every journey, every address she ever lived at etc., especially if that episode is not expanded upon and proven relevant to her development as an artist, which is what I ultimately expect from a literary biography. There were sections towards the middle of this book that read more like a list than a narrative, maybe because the biographer was compressing too much too quickly? I'm not sure. But his treatment of Bishop's art became superficial and decidedly cursory.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a fan of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry, you will enjoy this biography. It gives a balanced view on her early years, her complex love relationships, and her final years as a Harvard adjunct. She was a poet’s poet and I really enjoyed all the poetry references, often with background on the specifics of a particular poem. So good!

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great view into Bishop’s life, and I appreciated the biographical insight into her poetry. The incorporation of Bessel van der Kolk’s ideas of how trauma affects the body was apt. Both Bishop’s life/treatment as a woman in the world of poetry, as well as her relationship with alcohol, was almost an afterthought. Seems like glaring omissions but nevertheless a valuable work overall.

[Sebastian]

First read: December 9, 2019, Monday

[Patricia C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

BRings back memories of both Elizabeth and Tom

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful biography of Elizabeth Bishop, treated with obvious care and compassion for the poet. I would recommend this to anyone, but particularly to other creative writers!

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sentimental, vague, speculative, but lively.