One of Earth’s basic materials, marl has been used, since time immemorial, as a fertilizer and as clay for bricks. The bight is littered with old correspondences.īut let us turn back to the beginning, to the second line, ‘White, crumbling ribs of marl’ that ‘protrude and glare.’ The ancient world rises (or is dredged) up. ‘Some of the little white boats are still piled up ‘The color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.’Īnd further on, as she said, reminding her of her desk. These words to Lowell were the seeds of ‘The Bight,’ which opens with this beautifully flowing line -Īt low tide like this how sheer the water is.’ Writing in 1948, from Key West to Robert Lowell, she observed, “the water looks like blue gas - the harbor is always a mess, here, junky little boats all piled up, some hung with sponges and always a few half sunk or splintered up from the most recent hurricane. As is true for so many of her poems, ‘The Bight’ had its origins in something she actually saw. She was adored (not too big a word) by her contemporaries Robert Lowell and James Merrill, her work was revered by John Ashbery and Seamus Heaney, also her contemporaries, and her genius was early recognized by fellow poets such as Marianne Moore and Randall Jarrell.įebruary is Bishop’s birthday month, her birthday recalled many years later in the small, bracketed head note to ‘The Bight,’ a poem that appeared in the Pulitzer prize winning, “A Cold Spring” (1955). Elizabeth Bishop is among the finest American lyric poets of the second half of the 20th century.
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