Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast - Rilegato

"I really don't know HOW poetry gets to be written," Elizabeth Bishop once lamented, proposing some combination of mystery, surprise, and hard work. In a life marked by regular loss, inspiration would prove as elusive as happiness; the verse seemed to sneak up on her when she least expected. Megan Marshall here coaxes the self-conscious poet out of her shyness, her genius into words.  She proceeds as did Bishop in her best verse, by description paired with astute reflection.  And Marshall is daring, stepping out from behind the biographical curtain, effectively, ingeniously, and with a lovely twist at the end.  A sure-handed, beautifully constructed book that captures the color of Elizabeth Bishop's life–melancholy and ecstatic, anchored by whiskey and words, by turns New England grim and toucan-vibrant–on the page.  Megan Marshall performs her own miracle: Here is how poetry gets written.”

—Stacy Schiff, author ofThe Witches, Cleopatra, and Véra

"Elizabeth Bishop, the quietest, most elusive, and among the greatest of modern American poets, has since her death become a cultural icon, much studied, much quoted, and even a character in films and fiction. Now we have a remarkable book—part biography, part memoir—by a writer whose life actually intersected with hers. Megan Marshall, like her subject, has an unerring eye for the telling detail and the illuminating story. She succeeds in bringing Elizabeth Bishop vividly to life in all her poignant complexity.”

—Lloyd Schwartz, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, co-editor of Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters

"A sharp portrait of the tragedies and other influences that shaped Bishop’s life and career . . . . Best of all are Marshall’s analyses of Bishop’s poems . . . This fine biography demonstrates the magnitude of Bishop’s achievements without ignoring her flaws." —Kirkus Reviews "Marshall expertly shows this charmed and sometimes sad life in intelligent, clear, and beautiful prose . . . A generous, enjoyable piece of work." —Publishers Weekly "Marshall brings the sometimes elusive writer . . . to life, offering a cohesive and novel look at the ways in which subject and biographer are intertwined and the value of understanding a poet's biography while reading their work. VERDICT: This study opens up a new way of looking at Bishop's life and her place in American letters." —Library Journal  

"I really don't know HOW poetry gets to be written," Elizabeth Bishop once lamented, proposing some combination of mystery, surprise, and hard work. In a life marked by regular loss, inspiration would prove as elusive as happiness; the verse seemed to sneak up on her when she least expected. Megan Marshall here coaxes the self-conscious poet out of her shyness, her genius into words.  She proceeds as did Bishop in her best verse, by description paired with astute reflection.  And Marshall is daring, stepping out from behind the biographical curtain, effectively, ingeniously, and with a lovely twist at the end.  A sure-handed, beautifully constructed book that captures the color of Elizabeth Bishop's life–melancholy and ecstatic, anchored by whiskey and words, by turns New England grim and toucan-vibrant–on the page.  Megan Marshall performs her own miracle: Here is how poetry gets written.”

—Stacy Schiff, author ofThe Witches, Cleopatra, and Véra

”Elizabeth Bishop, the quietest, most elusive, and among the greatest of modern American poets, has since her death become a cultural icon, much studied, much quoted, and even a character in films and fiction. Now we have a remarkable book—part biography, part memoir—by a writer whose life actually intersected with hers. Megan Marshall, like her subject, has an unerring eye for the telling detail and the illuminating story. She succeeds in bringing Elizabeth Bishop vividly to life in all her poignant complexity.”

—Lloyd Schwartz, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, co-editor of Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters

"A sharp portrait of the tragedies and other influences that shaped Bishop’s life and career . . . . Best of all are Marshall’s analyses of Bishop’s poems . . . This fine biography demonstrates the magnitude of Bishop’s achievements without ignoring her flaws." —Kirkus Reviews "Marshall expertly shows this charmed and sometimes sad life in intelligent, clear, and beautiful prose . . . A generous, enjoyable piece of work." —Publishers Weekly

"I really don't know HOW poetry gets to be written," Elizabeth Bishop once lamented, proposing some combination of mystery, surprise, and hard work. In a life marked by regular loss, inspiration would prove as elusive as happiness; the verse seemed to sneak up on her when she least expected. Megan Marshall here coaxes the self-conscious poet out of her shyness, her genius into words.  She proceeds as did Bishop in her best verse, by description paired with astute reflection.  And Marshall is daring, stepping out from behind the biographical curtain, effectively, ingeniously, and with a lovely twist at the end.  A sure-handed, beautifully constructed book that captures the color of Elizabeth Bishop's life–melancholy and ecstatic, anchored by whiskey and words, by turns New England grim and toucan-vibrant–on the page.  Megan Marshall performs her own miracle: Here is how poetry gets written.”

—Stacy Schiff, author ofThe Witches, Cleopatra, and Véra

"Elizabeth Bishop, the quietest, most elusive, and among the greatest of modern American poets, has since her death become a cultural icon, much studied, much quoted, and even a character in films and fiction. Now we have a remarkable book—part biography, part memoir—by a writer whose life actually intersected with hers. Megan Marshall, like her subject, has an unerring eye for the telling detail and the illuminating story. She succeeds in bringing Elizabeth Bishop vividly to life in all her poignant complexity.”

—Lloyd Schwartz, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, co-editor of Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters

"A sharp portrait of the tragedies and other influences that shaped Bishop’s life and career . . . . Best of all are Marshall’s analyses of Bishop’s poems . . . This fine biography demonstrates the magnitude of Bishop’s achievements without ignoring her flaws." —Kirkus Reviews "Marshall expertly shows this charmed and sometimes sad life in intelligent, clear, and beautiful prose . . . A generous, enjoyable piece of work." —Publishers Weekly "Marshall brings the sometimes elusive writer . . . to life, offering a cohesive and novel look at the ways in which subject and biographer are intertwined and the value of understanding a poet's biography while reading their work. VERDICT: This study opens up a new way of looking at Bishop's life and her place in American letters." —Library Journal "Enlightening . . . A biography of Bishop is long overdue, and Marshall illuminates the poet’s life with fascinating and inspiring details and insights." —Booklist "In prose that reads with the intrigue of a novel, the author reveals previously unknown facets of Bishop's life, from her troubled childhood to a clandestine love affair." —Harper's Bazaar "An extraordinary book about how Elizabeth Bishop moved people in her life and her poetry." —Buffalo News

For Margaret Fuller: A New American Life 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Biography 2014 Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction "Fuller’s was a great life, flush with drama, and Megan Marshall’s new biography rises to it in ways small and large . . . This one pitches Ms. Marshall into the front rank of American biographers . . . 'Margaret Fuller' is as seductive as it is impressive. It has the grain and emotional amplitude of a serious novel, especially in its first half. It delivers a lovely and bumpy coming-of-age story, one of the best such stories 19th-century America has to offer. Now that the new season of 'Girls' is winding down, this book is an entertainment that ambitious and literate young women should turn their attention toward . . . In Ms. Marshall, Fuller has found what feels like her ideal biographer."—Dwight Garner, New York Times "The book's success comes from the way that Marshall allows the reader to understand and empathize with Fuller in her plight." -- Publishers Weekly "[Marshall] inhabits Fuller’s dramatic, oft-told story with unique intimacy by virtue of her fluency in and judicious quoting of Fuller’s extraordinarily vivid letters . . . . A magnificent biography of a revolutionary thinker, witness, and writer."—Booklist starred review   For The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism 2006 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography 2006 Frances Parkman Prize 2006 Mark Lynton History Prize 2006 Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction 2006 Honor Book, Boston Authors Club "Excellent . . . To write a group biography that also conveys the history of an era and a place is a massive enterprise, one that requires the writer to keep the threads of the story untangled even as the characters' lives overlap and converge.  Marshall, a specialist . . . has done a fine job . . . By painting so colorful any sympathetic a portrait of these remarkable women . . . Marshall has given us so much that it seems ungrateful to ask for more."—New York Times Book Review   "A commanding intellectual biography."—The Boston Sunday Globe "Prodigious research . . . This books reads like a novel but is a model of scholarly, feminist biography unmatched by previous works."—Library Journal, starred

"I really don't know HOW poetry gets to be written," Elizabeth Bishop once lamented, proposing some combination of mystery, surprise, and hard work. In a life marked by regular loss, inspiration would prove as elusive as happiness; the verse seemed to sneak up on her when she least expected. Megan Marshall here coaxes the self-conscious poet out of her shyness, her genius into words.  She proceeds as did Bishop in her best verse, by description paired with astute reflection.  And Marshall is daring, stepping out from behind the biographical curtain, effectively, ingeniously, and with a lovely twist at the end.  A sure-handed, beautifully constructed book that captures the color of Elizabeth Bishop's life–melancholy and ecstatic, anchored by whiskey and words, by turns New England grim and toucan-vibrant–on the page.  Megan Marshall performs her own miracle: Here is how poetry gets written.”

—Stacy Schiff, author ofThe Witches, Cleopatra, and Véra

”Elizabeth Bishop, the quietest, most elusive, and among the greatest of modern American poets, has since her death become a cultural icon, much studied, much quoted, and even a character in films and fiction. Now we have a remarkable book—part biography, part memoir—by a writer whose life actually intersected with hers. Megan Marshall, like her subject, has an unerring eye for the telling detail and the illuminating story. She succeeds in bringing Elizabeth Bishop vividly to life in all her poignant complexity.”

—Lloyd Schwartz, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, co-editor of Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters

"I really don't know HOW poetry gets to be written," Elizabeth Bishop once lamented, proposing some combination of mystery, surprise, and hard work. In a life marked by regular loss, inspiration would prove as elusive as happiness; the verse seemed to sneak up on her when she least expected. Megan Marshall here coaxes the self-conscious poet out of her shyness, her genius into words.  She proceeds as did Bishop in her best verse, by description paired with astute reflection.  And Marshall is daring, stepping out from behind the biographical curtain, effectively, ingeniously, and with a lovely twist at the end.  A sure-handed, beautifully constructed book that captures the color of Elizabeth Bishop's life–melancholy and ecstatic, anchored by whiskey and words, by turns New England grim and toucan-vibrant–on the page.  Megan Marshall performs her own miracle: Here is how poetry gets written.”

—Stacy Schiff, author ofThe Witches, Cleopatra, and Véra

"Elizabeth Bishop, the quietest, most elusive, and among the greatest of modern American poets, has since her death become a cultural icon, much studied, much quoted, and even a character in films and fiction. Now we have a remarkable book—part biography, part memoir—by a writer whose life actually intersected with hers. Megan Marshall, like her subject, has an unerring eye for the telling detail and the illuminating story. She succeeds in bringing Elizabeth Bishop vividly to life in all her poignant complexity.”

—Lloyd Schwartz, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, co-editor of Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters

"A sharp portrait of the tragedies and other influences that shaped Bishop’s life and career . . . . Best of all are Marshall’s analyses of Bishop’s poems . . . This fine biography demonstrates the magnitude of Bishop’s achievements without ignoring her flaws." —Kirkus Reviews "Marshall expertly shows this charmed and sometimes sad life in intelligent, clear, and beautiful prose . . . A generous, enjoyable piece of work." —Publishers Weekly

MEGAN MARSHALL is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in biography for Margaret Fuller and the author of The Peabody Sisters, which won the Francis Parkman Prize and the Mark Lynton History Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. She is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor at Emerson College.