Bishop, “At the Fishhouses:” Starting Out Plain

Elizabeth Bishop

Read By: Robert Pinsky

In contrast with the “high” style of, for example, Gilgamesh, the beginning of Elizabeth Bishop’s “At the Fishhouses” is plain rather than innate, though the sentences and images do intimate the ascent to come. The elegance and care, the pressure of activity in the scene and in the syntax, all point toward the “high” nature of the closing lines to come.

  • Elizabeth Bishop
  • 20th Century
  • English
  • What is “Great”
  • Lecture
  • Greatness
  • The Art of Poetry