I have often been asked, in one way or another, whether
being so immersed in one subject for so long (i.e., Elizabeth Bishop for over
20 years) is limiting. I can appreciate why someone might think this to be the
case, but the truth is quite the opposite. If you are engaged in a deep study
of just about anything, you find yourself travelling (metaphorically and
literally) to all sorts of places you never expected.
I am particularly fortunate that my subject (one of them,
that is) — Elizabeth Bishop — happens to possess an astonishing range, a
remarkable latitude of context. Not only was her art diverse and her life
complex and fascinating, her own interests were abundant. So, my immersion in
the study of Elizabeth Bishop’s life and art has taken me on voyages that I
would never have imagined (including, for example, an actual journey to Brazil,
and the discovery of the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins).
My interest in the history of my own province long predated
my encounter with Elizabeth Bishop (I have two degrees in history and worked
for over five years in the Nova Scotia Archives). But when I embarked on a
study of Bishop’s connections to Nova
Scotia and the Maritimes, in many ways I immersed
even more deeply in the history of this region. It was as if I acquired a third
history degree.
Chapter Five of Lifting
Yesterday is the first of three chapters (Five, Six and Seven) which
comprise a mini-biography of Bishop. The first four chapters explored powerful Nova Scotia influences
on Bishop (place, ancestors/family and her mother). The next three chapters
look at how those influences manifested in her life. The way I decided to chart
the impact of these influences was through a more conventional chronological
narrative. Thus, what Chapters Five through Seven offer is a biography within a
biography. Leave it to me to complicate structure, but Lifting Yesterday’s form seemed simply to emerge out of my
immersion.
I have always contended that Bishop’s childhood held many
keys and clues to “Bishop the adult” and “Bishop the poet.” So, Chapter Five is
a direct account of what I see as significant in the earliest years of her life.
I focus on only a few themes, as I provide a basic narrative of these years.
One thing from these earliest years I’m quite proud of is my discovery that
Bishop, fascinated by shipwrecks her whole life, experienced her own shipwreck
in 1919.
The discovery happened this way: I spent months in the Nova
Scotia Archives reading the “Newsy Notes” of Great Village
in the Truro Daily News (a motherlode
of information). One day I came across a note that said (I’m paraphrasing): “Miss
Grace Boomer and her friend [name forgotten by me] and little Miss Elizabeth
Bishop returned home for the summer. They were aboard the ill-fated North Star.” Thought I: “Ill-fated North Star! What is that?!”
North Star (Yarmouth County Museum)
One small reference sent me off on a delightful journey —
first through more records in the archives, where I discovered that the steamer
North Star went aground off the coast
of Nova Scotia on a trip from Boston
to Yarmouth.
That Bishop never directly mentions this event (she was eight years old at the
time) in anything I have ever read was disappointing to me, but I still felt
that this experience was vital. How could being on a shipwreck not affect you?
North Star aground on Green Island (Yarmouth County Museum)
After I’d mined the archives for information, I learned that
the Yarmouth County Museum
and Archives (http://yarmouthcountymuseum.ca/)
had more information. So, one day, my father and I drove to Yarmouth to visit the museum. The archivist,
whose name also escapes me, showed me a number of North Star artefacts. The most impressive of them, I felt sure, would
have thrilled Bishop: the great ship’s bell (which I got to ring!) and its
wheel.
The wheel of the North Star (my own photo)
As we talked, the archivist said that sometime in the 1970s
an elderly woman, who had been a child on the North Star on that fateful day, came to the museum seeking
information about the shipwreck. She was sure that the archivist at the time
had alerted the local paper and there was a photo of this woman. You can
imagine what I thought. I knew Bishop had passed through Yarmouth
in the mid-1970s when she and Alice Methfessel had taken the ferry Prince of Fundy to and from
Portland/Yarmouth and drove to Great
Village. Might Bishop
have gone to the museum? The archivist went off to find the photograph,
returning about fifteen minutes later with it. Alas, it was not Bishop; but as
I looked at the photo, it was amazing to think that this woman had shared that
experience with Bishop.
Survivor of the North Star with Yarmouth County Museum archivist
Chapter Five of Lifting
Yesterday has a detailed account of what happened on the North Star on that
“ill-fated” day.
I incorporated the North
Star experience into an essay I wrote that was published in The Dalhousie Review, “Shipwrecks of the
Soul.” I’d be happy to send you a pdf of that essay, if you are interested.
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