My Breakfast with Elizabeth Bishop

However, I reacted negatively to criticisms like this:

> Her closing lines are often summaries that feel tacked-on and avoid placing the scene in a larger context

Must poems "place scenes in a larger context?" Is that necessarily the goal of poetry?

> A striking aspect of Bishop’s early poems is that they rarely seem to go anywhere

Again, why must poems "go anywhere?" I often find myself appreciating poems that specifically don't go anywhere. These poems, I find, are often more emotionally evocative than poems that seem to be searching for "deeper meaning" or belong in a "social context."

> In short, many of her poems lack the spiritual or philosophical underpinnings

Again, I find myself wondering: so?

> Bishop largely ignored politics, charitable work, and the communities around her, living as a non-participating observer

This just feels nasty. Again, I see no relationship between these observations, which feel more like accusations, and the quality of a poet's work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Astrue

Similarly, Wallace Stevens was VP of an insurance company. Saint-John Perse, who won the Nobel for his poetry, was also France's leading diplomat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-John_Perse