491 Elizabeth Bishop (with Megan Marshall)
The History of Literature
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How Elizabeth McCarthy Becomes a Poet in the 1930s
Her mother was admitted to a mental hospital when she was quite young and then she never saw her again. She would sometimes tell people that her mother had died because it was easier to say that than the truth. Her mother died just as Elizabeth was about to graduate from college at Vassar, which had been a largely positive experience with a lot of strong-minded women. In the 1930s understanding of drinking and understanding of asthma which she also suffered from and of lesbianism which she didn't suffer from. But something she felt she had to hide all of this combined to well to make her the poet she was.
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