Sandpiper

This is a fascinating window giving on the private thoughts of one of the great American writers of the twentieth century. It follows on Carcanet's publication of Edgar Allan Poe and the Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts and Fragments, edited by Alice Quinn, and Exchanging Hats, the poet's celebrated watercolours. Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) wrote frequently and intimately in her journals. They document the evolution of her work and illuminate another side of the private life that was the occasion of so many of her poems. This generous selection shows us, in many cases for the first time, the thoughts and passions of a figure unrivalled in her influence on American poetry, an influence registered by poets throughout the Anglophone world. Her prose has proven an essential complement to her poems; David Kalstone wrote in the New York Times that it would be read 'beside her poems, as Keats' letters are beside his... "The Sea & Its Shore" and "In Prison" [are] worthy of Kafka or Poe.' Of Alice Quinn's annotations, Sam Leith wrote in the Telegraph, 'Beautifully and fascinatingly annotated... you can see the great poems themselves emerging. A complete treasure-house.'