Elizabeth Bishop’s Aviary 
Mark Ford
The earliest poem collected in Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box, Alice Quinn’s edition of Elizabeth Bishop’s miscellaneous drafts and fragments, opens:
I introduce Penelope Gwin,
A friend of mine through thick and thin,
Who’s travelled much in foreign parts
Pursuing culture and the arts.
‘And also,’ says Penelope
‘This family life is not for me.
I find it leads to deep depression
And I was born for self expression.’[*]
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Mark Ford teaches in the English department at University College London. This year he has published editions of the poetry of Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg and John Ashbery.
Other articles by this contributor:
The Style It Takes · John Cale
Love and Theft · plagiarism
Red makes wrong · Harry Mathews
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