Sestina - Elizabeth Bishop

theme: childhood

• wonderfully depicts the mentality of childhood

• Childhood mentality is also artfully portrayed in the depiction of the granddaughter drawing a house with her crayons.

• Throughout the poem, there are moments when Bishop skillfully inhabits a child’s point of view.

• Even as a child. Bishop clearly had the great imagination we see in her poetry.

theme: moments of epiphany

• many of Bishop's poetry are marked by moments of awareness or epiphany, moments when a person gradually realises something profound and important about themselves or about the world. 

“reading the jokes from the almanac/ laughing and talking to hide her tears”

• tragedy has struck the family and it is “known only to a grandmother”

• The child is too young to fully comprehend the terrible events that have occurred.

• Beneath this seemingly happy activity, though, there is pain and loss

“her equinoctial tears/ and the rain that beats on the roof of the house/ were both foretold by the almanac”

• There is a tension in the poem between what is happening on the surface and the emotions that bubble underneath.

“both foretold by the almanac/ but only known to a grandmother”

• In the child’s mind, the grandmother is the only one that knows what the almanac foretold.

• She is at the center of this child’s world and is the holder of all knowledge

“but the child/ is watching the tea kettle’s small hard tears”

“the way the rain must dance on the house”

• a childs imaginary inner world brings everday domestic objects to life.

• The rain that beats upon the house reflects the tears that seem to fall from everywhere - creating an overwhelming feeling of sorrow.

“with crayons the child draws a rigid house/ and a winding pathway”

• The child acts as a child does, drawing pictures and imagining the household items coming to life.

• in many ways the losses suffered y this family have affected the child.

“secretly/ while the grandmother busies herself above the stove/ the little moons fall down like tears”

• Even though the grandmother is doing her best to act normal, the sorrow seeps through.