Elizabeth Bishop, born on February 8, 1911, in Worcester, Massachusetts, lived the stereotypical life of the struggling writer. Considered by many a "miniaturist" in her early years, Bishop relied extensively on grants and fellowships to support her writing.

However, later review of her work suggests what is referred to as a sharp confessional edge to her writing. In addition, though her work appeared to address simplistic subject matter, her poetry is seen as delving well into the existential level as well. Her small volume of work is generally seen to be a result of her perfectionism as a writer.

After graduation from Vassar College in 1934, Bishop traveled a great deal spending time abroad as well as in Key West, Florida from 1938-42 and in Mexico in 1943.

In 1946, Bishop won the Houghton Mifflin Prize for poetry - her first book of poetry, entitled North and South, was then published. The first printing resulted in a modest 1,000 copies being produced though Bishop would eventually receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for the book.

In 1951, she received the significant sum of $2,500 from Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia for a traveling fellowship. Bishop set off to circumnavigate South America by boat, but upon arriving in Santos, Brazil met Lota de Macedo Soares. The two had a lesbian relationship and Bishop remained in Brazil for the better part of fifteen years, leaving just before Soares committing suicide in 1967.

In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Bishop went on to win the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and two Guggenheim Fellowships. She was the first woman to ever receive the prestigious International Neustadt Prize for Literature, winning the award in 1976.To this day she remains the only American to ever receive the Neustadt Prize.

The distinguished writer also spent many years teaching, working at the University of Washington, Harvard, New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bishop died in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 6, 1979.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.