{"id":94226,"date":"2016-02-08T16:22:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T21:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=94226"},"modified":"2016-02-08T17:33:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T22:33:47","slug":"homesickness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/08\/homesickness\/","title":{"rendered":"Homesickness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

\u201cHomesickness,\u201d\u00a0ca. 1948. This page is from the Vassar College Library, Department of Archives and Special Collections, where Bishop\u2019s papers are stored. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s poem \u201cHomesickness\u201d appeared in our Summer 2005<\/a> issue as part of a portfolio of her notebooks. Alice Quinn wrote of the poem, <\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Bishop began \u201cHomesickness\u201d in 1948, and the handwriting suggests that this draft may date from that time. In 1964, in a letter to Anne Stevenson, Bishop writes, \u201cMy mother went off to teach school at 16 (the way most of the enterprising young people did) and her first school was in lower Cape Breton somewhere\u2014and the pupils spoke nothing much but Gaelic … she was so homesick she was taken the family dog to cheer her up. I have written both a story and a poem about this episode but neither satisfy me yet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

remote already & irreparable
Beneath the bed the big dog thumped
her tail<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

HOMESICKNESS<\/span><\/p>\n

c. 1900<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

So she put up her hair & went to teach
[a little] \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 from home \u2014
at River Phillip, thirty miles away<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

the pupils were \u2014<\/p>\n

Cousin Sofie \u2014<\/p>\n

pan-<\/p>\n

The salt pork & the \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 buckwheat cakes
smelling like frying \u2014<\/p>\n

headaches<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

the oil lamp \u2014 the sloping bedroom
ceiling \u2014 in a low tent of sadly
matched wall-paper
Finally
<\/span>She missed
her father \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0her fretful mother & the jealous sisters \u2014<\/p>\n

* The family dog to keep her company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

\u2014 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Clenched
\u2014
\u2014 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0sleeping
not even realizing she was weeping
her face \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0[her] nightgown \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0drenched \u2014<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

it was too late \u2014 for what, she did not know. \u2014
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 already \u2014, remote,
irrepairable (rhyme) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 irreparable.<\/p>\n

Beneath the bed the big dog thumped her tail.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s poem \u201cHomesickness\u201d appeared in our Summer 2005 issue as part of a portfolio of her notebooks. Alice Quinn wrote of the poem, Bishop began \u201cHomesickness\u201d in 1948, and the handwriting suggests that this draft may date from that time. In 1964, in a letter to Anne Stevenson, Bishop writes, \u201cMy mother went off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":932,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[33,370,9158,21085,629,8914,21084,21082,11718,7221,165,21083],"class_list":["post-94226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-archives","tag-back-issues","tag-birthdays","tag-drafts","tag-elizabeth-bishop","tag-handwriting","tag-homesickness","tag-issue-174","tag-notebooks","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-summer-2005"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cHomesickness\u201d: a Draft of a Poem by Elizabeth Bishop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From a portfolio of Bishop\u2019s notebooks published in our Summer 2005.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/08\/homesickness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Homesickness by Elizabeth Bishop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 8, 2016 \u2013 Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s poem \u201cHomesickness\u201d appeared in our Summer 2005 issue as part of a portfolio of her notebooks. 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