I found the Elizabeth Bishop-New Yorker papers soon after I started my dissertation. I made my way through the library stacks, taking books off the shelves, and underneath a listing for the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection, which specializes in English and American literature, there was this entry: “Manuscripts Division.” That was it. I remember wondering what it could mean, so I asked a librarian. We talked a bit, and when she learned I was planning on visiting the Berg during spring break, she suggested I also go to the Manuscripts Room. “It’s just down the hall.”
I love the Manuscripts Room. I love the big, heavy tables and the green lamps. I love the glass cabinets and narrow stairs. The Manuscripts Room is at the far end of the main reading room behind tall, locked doors. I rang the bell, checked in, and asked the librarian if there were any Bishop papers in their collection. He said he didn’t think so, so I asked what papers he had. He told me they had recently finished cataloging The New Yorker Records. I ordered some boxes and sat down.
The Manuscripts Division stores its papers in the library basement and only has access to the freight elevator at certain times of day. Eventually, the doors opened and a young man wheeled in a small trolley with cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes. My order was the tall gray boxes, big enough for several file folders standing up. I signed one out, brought it back to the table, and opened the top. Inside, flipping past folders labeled “Arno, Peter” and “Benchley, Robert,” I saw “Bishop, Elizabeth.” I pulled it out, having no idea what was inside.
Over the course of that spring break, I read the entire correspondence, year by year, box by box, trolley by trolley. Once I realized what the letters were, the insights they provided into Bishop’s writing process and the process of bringing a poem into print, I wanted to shout to everyone in the room, “LOOK! Look at THIS!” But I did not. I went downstairs to the pay phones and called my boyfriend. He listened quietly, supportively as I started talking non-stop about Elizabeth Bishop, and he has continued to listen to me, help me, talk about, write about my favorite poet ever since.
***
Joelle Biele is the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence and author of White Summer. A Fulbright scholar in Germany and Poland, she has received awards from the Poetry Society of America and the Maryland State Arts Council. Her essays on Bishop appear in American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Gettysburg Review, and New England Review. She has taught American literature and creative writing at the University of Maryland, Goucher College, the University of Oldenburg, Germany, and Jagiellonian University, Poland.
Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence is due out in February 2011 from Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Check out excerpts online. You can also read more about Joelle's discovery of Elizabeth Bishop here.
I love the Manuscripts Room. I love the big, heavy tables and the green lamps. I love the glass cabinets and narrow stairs. The Manuscripts Room is at the far end of the main reading room behind tall, locked doors. I rang the bell, checked in, and asked the librarian if there were any Bishop papers in their collection. He said he didn’t think so, so I asked what papers he had. He told me they had recently finished cataloging The New Yorker Records. I ordered some boxes and sat down.
The Manuscripts Division stores its papers in the library basement and only has access to the freight elevator at certain times of day. Eventually, the doors opened and a young man wheeled in a small trolley with cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes. My order was the tall gray boxes, big enough for several file folders standing up. I signed one out, brought it back to the table, and opened the top. Inside, flipping past folders labeled “Arno, Peter” and “Benchley, Robert,” I saw “Bishop, Elizabeth.” I pulled it out, having no idea what was inside.
Over the course of that spring break, I read the entire correspondence, year by year, box by box, trolley by trolley. Once I realized what the letters were, the insights they provided into Bishop’s writing process and the process of bringing a poem into print, I wanted to shout to everyone in the room, “LOOK! Look at THIS!” But I did not. I went downstairs to the pay phones and called my boyfriend. He listened quietly, supportively as I started talking non-stop about Elizabeth Bishop, and he has continued to listen to me, help me, talk about, write about my favorite poet ever since.
***
Joelle Biele is the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence and author of White Summer. A Fulbright scholar in Germany and Poland, she has received awards from the Poetry Society of America and the Maryland State Arts Council. Her essays on Bishop appear in American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Gettysburg Review, and New England Review. She has taught American literature and creative writing at the University of Maryland, Goucher College, the University of Oldenburg, Germany, and Jagiellonian University, Poland.
Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence is due out in February 2011 from Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Check out excerpts online. You can also read more about Joelle's discovery of Elizabeth Bishop here.
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