elizabeth bishop sestina

Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina” is a captivating poem filled with depictions that take the reader to the valleys of sadness and unresolved grief. The poem symbolizes the dynamics of an ongoing life as well as the powers of memory and an unsettled sense of loss. Beyond presenting sadness, the poem conveys the inter-generational challenges posed by a sense of loss and unresolved grief. The writer draws the reader into the poem through her use of personification of inanimate items and associating human feelings to everyday objects. The structure of the poem as a sestina helps the reader to relate to the main theme through emphasizing on emotive words that demonstrate a sense of grief and unresolved loss. This essay examines the author 's use of symbolism with inanimate objects as well as carefully placed emotive words were effective in conveying the powers of memory and inter-generational sense of loss through time. This sestina by Elizabeth Bishop seem to make the reader emotional even though the actual reasons for the causes of sadness remain unstated. Tears are a way of expressing sadness and emotions that the reader strongly feel inside, but the grandmother in the poem is struggling and trying very hard to hide or disguise her tears. For the grandmother, the main reason for not letting her emotions overflow might be that she does not want to scare the child or remind her that something terrible is about to happen; perhaps, a possible harm to the child herself. The abstract way Bishop expresses the grief in this poem has a very intriguing nature and has the ability to captivate the reader’s attention. And while writing the poem it is clear that Bishop was consulting her emotions. This poem creates vivid images and a vague concept in the reader’s minds through the use of symbolism creating a sense of mystery around what causes the grandmother 's sadness throughout the poem. The reasons for the grandmother’s sadness remain a mystery to the reader since there are

Cited: Jeffrey Powers-Beck. "Time to Plant Tears": Elizabeth Bishop 's Seminary of Tears Author(s): Source: South Atlantic Review, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Nov., 1995), pp. 69-87 Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association. Web. Rogers, Janine. Academic Journal Article from Mosaic (Winnipeg), Vol. 43, No. 1. Web.