“Sestina” climaxes in the last three stanzas and upon reading the end of this poem and I’m lead to believe that these objects may not impact the grandmother’s life beneficially. During the envoi, what was thought to be the comforting almanac states that it is “[time] to plant tears” (122). It’s as if the almanac believes and relishes in the fact that it is the root of the grandmother’s sadness. There are a couple of ways the almanac undermines her happiness. In reading the penultimate stanza, Bishop writes, “little moons fall down like tears/ from between the pages of the almanac” (122). Here, Bishop appears to declare that the grandmother is wasting her time (or ‘many moons’) between the “pages of the almanac” (122). Is this annual book isolating…
Through her work, Bishop employs aquatic imagery in many of her poems. However, with water representing a reflection of the grandmother’s (and in turn Bishop’s) own sadness I wonder whether the prevalence of water throughout her life’s work serves as an acknowledgement of her internal condition. For someone who lived through so much, from struggling with her lesbianism, to grappling with the absence of both of her parents, to battling alcoholism, this could be Bishop’s own method of dealing with her demons? Unlike Lowell who drew upon his own life to write his poetry, Bishop always keeps her poetry at arm’s length, only allowing the readers to gather brief glimpses of her personal life. After reading “Sestina”, I feel like I can finally appreciate poems like “The Bight”. Before, I was frustrated by the negative tone written into her description of beautiful water scenery. When I look at a coastline I do not think to mirror with to “[white], crumbling ribs.” (59) I always found the way Bishop wrote attractive moments in such a tragic way to be undesirable trait of her work. However, now I can read into Bishop’s usage of water as a subtle recognition of her inner struggles. With many people describing their struggles with depression as a sensation of drowning, water becomes a vivid…
