Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop
The title of the book, Geography III, and the
pictures portrayed on the cover of the book leaves much to be
questioned. This is after all a book of short poems and when I saw the title
and the cover that was not the first thought that came to mind. After reading
the epigraph and the poems the concept was a bit clearer. Many of Bishop’s
poems talk about places in the world like in the instance with “Poem” or how
she cleverly introduces geography with her national geographic magazine in “The
Waiting Room”. I thought also that the pictures on the front cover were also an
indication to imply or relate to the reader to explore. Books, protractor, a
map, telescope, a globe, and writing essentials all stand alone on one thought to
explore. The epigraph asks “What is Geography? A description of the earth’s
surface. What is Earth? The planet or body on which we live. What is the shape
of the Earth? Round, like a ball. Of what is the Earth’s surface composed? Land
and water” all questions that are related to a child like state. I felt that
all of her poems were almost from a child like state. Bishop also uses a lot of
imagery in her poems and I think she does an excellent job of describing what
she sees in a manner that her readers can not only relate to but envision.
Bishop mentions specific places in her poems a lot as well such as “Worcester,
Massachusetts” in “The Waiting Room,” “Bass River”, “Tantramar marshes”, and
“The New Brunswick woods” in “The Moose.” Maybe that is another reason why she
named her book Geography III because she talks about specific places in
the world. Which leads me to ask what is relevant to those specific places?
Maybe also her use of imagery in her poems is her way of directing you to focus
on that area and maybe lead you to further exploration. A literally meaning of
geography is to study land, features of Earth, people, and nature. Most of
these aspects Bishop covers in some way in her poems. She studies land in
“Poem,” she studies people in “The Moose,” and features of Earth and nature are
mixed within the two as well. I think there is both a literally meaning to her
using Geography as the title of her book as well as a metaphoric meaning behind
the literally meaning. Bishop is asking her reader to question what the world
is, how does it affect us, and to understand it. I think a great example of
this is “Crusoe in England” he lives on an island for many years and has to
learn from it and about it. Know is inside and out...mapping out the island
with his mind and memorizing it. “I had to live on each and every one,
eventually, for ages, registering their flora, their fauna, their geography.”
Another reason that I think she chose to title the book geography-to enhance
one of the major underlying themes within and throughout the book of short
poems.
It would seem that we are on "the same page" here. I was certainly confused about the title of Geography III. I was reading it on the campus bookstore website and did not know at all know where I had been registered for a course in Geography. Then it finally dawned on me... in class one day Dr. Watson mentioned "We will be going over Elizabeth Bishop and her book titled 'Geography III'
ReplyDelete". Once nuanced bit of information that I believe that you cleverly used was the poem in which Bishop writes about a National Geographic Magazine in the waiting room. I do agree that the magazine was a sort of “tongue in cheek” reference to the title of the book.
I also concur which you that the picture on the front of the book also lend clues to the odd nature of the title of the book, as the “Vespuccian” tools of the picture such as a protractor are clearly tools of a geographer.
The epigraph also serves us in (as I certainly agree with you upon) drawing out minds to the epigraph as it relates to the poem itself. I have a different analysis of this correlativity, not a “more correct one”, but nonetheless a different one. I believe the epigraph is also describing the globally of Bishop’s work. As the epigraph is asking these questions, I do believe that she, the writer, is answering them. All in all I think in my humble opinion that your analysis was on point.