Friday, May 6, 2011

Ann Birstein and Elizabeth Bishop

I finished the Ann Birstein book and looked her up online a little more. I happen to have checked out another book by her too. This one is called "Summer Situations". I might start it tonight but I'm trying to hold off. I have two biographies waiting for me at one of the local libraries. I am hoping they will be easy reading. Checking books out of the local libraries means I only have about three weeks to read them, far less time than when I check them out of the university library.

While fishing through the bag of books that happened to have "Summer Situations" in it I came across two books of poetry by Elizabeth Bishop. I had checked these out a few weeks ago from the university library as well. I was trying to remember why and as close as I can figure out I checked them out because they mentioned Amherst, MA in them. Really, I think that's all it was sadly. A quick look at the copyright dates let me know that one of these books was originally copyrighted in the 1930s with the copyright renewed several times into the 1960s. The books have been well studied by students who have underlined important passages and written in the margins. Still I only skimmed through them. I guess my mind is in other places tonight.