Saturday, November 15, 2014

Bishop's Travels



Travel – a theme I had always been fond of. Literature – something that i got affiliated with during the course of growing up. A perfect blend of both of these attributes – I found in Elizabeth bishop – a poet who travelled all through her life. Having undergone a troublesome childhood and life, she was a poet in full spirits when it came to writing about life. All through her life she had a problem with several realist writers who used to write things that were not required to be said so openly. And yet, not only was she one honest poet but had confessed numerous realities in her poetry – both about the society she used to live in and her private life.
Having been rejected for three years she finally succeeded into getting recognized as a profound writer in New York Times all through her life. Initially she was considered to be a dark and elliptic writer but gradually readers adapted her style. Being friends with a no. Of writers, editors and considering letter- writing as the best medium of having literary flights – she was able to give a vivid descriptions – both of her life and her imaginary flights.

In her ‘questions about travels’ she gave a reflection of every traveler's eye-sight. The world one spectates or the one in memory’s light. The home one has left or the home that one seeks to find, those travels that give rest or that imagination without any real test. It was all – well condensed into those few of Bishop’s lines.
She wonders about that basic dilemma of choosing between travel and a stable life. Whether living at strange places has any familiarity then an unknown inner-sight. Whether one should physically see new places or If imagination a better place to reside. Was it worth all its efforts after all, those were mere mementos of objectified times. Moments and moments – all captured with those limited literary device. Or if those emotions were a huge opportunity cost to have no permanent place to into which one can hide.
She ends her poem openly, without giving any fixed premise. But one line had her heart – the place where she did reside. ‘home- wherever it may be’ called her voice. Who knows where it was – her inner voice.
She saw world as a mirror – reflecting back her inner sigh. Wherever she travelled, she picturized her own eye-sight. What new the world had to offer –was her only plight. And yet she explored herself – in all through her travels – with all her might.
Being a female travel had many challenges and social plight. But her lesbian status relieved her from that offensive sight. And she travelled full power – all through the world, making numerous places her home – to reflect upon life all curled.
It is during her long stay in Brazil that she wrote the most about travel. Imagine her reflections at fruitations when she was finally stabilized .so here she meditated upon her life and wrote those 19 poems and a story – in a short memoir – her 15 year long laboured history.
She was not an idyllic product of romance and fantasy. It was in reality and illusions she attained ecstasy. She wrote about downtrodden, isolated marginalized. She reflected upon their deep-most plight. In the robes of childhood she draped those women and their plight -  Almost always at subversion to those horrorful games of dominated fight. Her victims had the tool of imagination. And yet it was all her very creation. In locks and chains of words and grammar, she made her characters imprisoned in reality- far from glamour.
In one of her poems she treated the grandmother and her grand daughter,The elder one with tears ready to slaughter. The child was lost in her own world of imagination. The old woman was lost in her own tragic emotion. She was forced to hide her tears in front of the child. The child had her own escape in her wild flight. She drew a sketch of a house with a man. Grandma knew – crying was on ban. A hole on the roof leaked a drop. Resembling those tears on lady’s cheeks, yet, on paper a blot.
The child was oblivious of its symbolic relation - The pain to be identified and her grandma’s isolation. She drew yet another sketch, with another home and another man. She expected the lady to see it as their stem. But the fate was decided – for people like them. Each painting full of tears – aah the cyclic stem.
 But the child was lost in her world of illusions. Those beggars on streets full of fascinations. They expected a miracle out of the man standing in a balcony - A buttered loaf of bread and coffee with a warm penny. But the hopes were turned down, as crumbles appeared, A drop of coffee – dealing with their fears. There was no miracle that day, but the child was still in spirits. She dreamed of her place out of imaginary hits. And there in a balcony was she all filled. With gallons of coffee was she no more chilled. But there she knew – it was all a dream. Coz there she saw people in a thirsty stream.
They tried to quench their unlimited thirst- with those shadows of treasures of miracle – burst.
But all that child had was wait – an endless wait –while she was sitting inside a dentist’s  state. She was waiting for her aunt to return from check up room. Her eyes filtered those people like broom. Grownups despised her senses and spirit. There those magazines – she gave them a hit. Those images of grotesque with dark out leashed. Those unattractive breasts and ugliness outreached. She hated it all – the world of elders- how she despised to be amidst those peddlers. And yet she had no option but to wait for her aunt, till she realizes her status of being the same, she had to otherwise chant.
Amidst hopes and despairs bishop tried to find her entity. For her, every place was her own city. Those voices unheard and places that were felt – inside her poetry they were all melt. And there happened the alchemy of her innermost desire – those that she observed and those that she fired.  And there was born an eternal traveller –right in her times – to our own – like interstellar.


MYSTICAL WANDERER

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