From Pen to Hook: Part 20

The final image in this series is Lighthall's response to Bishop's early poem "Chemin de Fer." This strange, fable-like poem is one of the first in her first book North & South. It shows a view from a train (as opposed to a bus in the late poem "The Moose") and offers an odd aggressive act when a hermit shoots off a gun, though the act seems more like just making a noise than any sort of violence, because the hermit shouts one of Bishop's strong but mysterious declarations: "Love should be put in to action." Slight as this poem seems, it contains layers of meaning and many images that reappear in Bishop's work throughout her life. She is signalling that an essential character of her work is "an echo." I have enjoyed presenting Lighthall's images, which are themselves like visual echoes of Bishop's words, but they are of course much more than that. Lighthall has put her love of Bishop's art into action, into her own art, which is a pleasure to contemplate. Again, I want to thank Susan Kerslake for providing me with all the images used in this series.