Chapter Nine is another exploration of several Bishop works,
looking at them through the lens I set up in the preceeding chapters. Chapter
Ten turns the lens on Bishop herself, which I do using her late great poem
“Crusoe in England,”
included in her final collection Georgraphy
III.
Thinking about what sort of supplement I might offer, I
decided on just a couple of photographs, recently taken at the house by my
sister, Brenda – photos of old newspaper that is still attached to the walls of
the attic room on the second floor. At one time, newspaper would have covered
the walls of this room – insulation. I have no doubt that Bishop spent time
playing in this room covered with text (quite literally “writing on the wall”).
When people see this room, they are amazed and immediately
can connect what are now only the barest remnants to various themes, interests,
aspects of EB’s work. This tiny room with its open beams and boards, tucked at
the back of the house, is, in my view, a vital space in Bishop iconography.
Some of which I explore in these two chapters.
For example, two of the most prominent mentions of volcanoes
in Bishop’s work are found in “In the Waiting Room” and “Crusoe in England,”
both in Geography III. Bishop
encountered images of volcanoes in the 1918 National
Georgraphic that seeded “In the Waiting Room.” I encountered a vivid
description of a Russian island being born because of a volcano in an issue of
the Truro Daily News in the late
1910s, a piece that I could well imagine Pa Bulmer reading to the family after
tea on one of those quiet evenings during the last days of Gertrude’s time with
the family, before she went into the hospital. “Crusoe in England” begins
with the image of an island being born from a volcano. Did that early article
help seed this very late poem?
But, perhaps Bishop’s earliest encounter with an erupting
volcano was on the walls of the attic room at the EB House.
Caption on image: "Vesuvius in Eruption" (Photo by Brenda Barry)
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