Chapter 12 - Archives

Summary

This chapter focuses on the poet and her archive, offering a brief history of archival acquisition and practice and a discussion of how the expanding archive and changes in literary scholarship have influenced our reading of Bishop as a queer poet. Hicok argues that Bishop’s extensive archive enriches our understanding of mid-century poetry and poetics and provides important documentary evidence of Bishop’s creative process and the various social forces that help to shape a career. Moreover, Hicok argues that Bishop’s poetic practice is itself archival, representing a kind of curatorial poetics that can serve as a case study for understanding the value of archival research for teaching and scholarship in the humanities. Finally, Hicok argues that Bishop’s career, reputation as a poet, and poetic craft cannot be fully understood unless we consider it in the context of her expanding archives and how that has influenced how we read her.