As Linda Anderson points out in her book titled Elizabeth Bishop: Lines of Connection, Bishop is usually thought of “in relation to the visual register” when Bishop had a love for music (Anderson, 121). Throughout our readings some of her poems have contained music or musical themes, but “Songs for a Colored Singer” caught my eye in North & South.
First, it is important to mention that this poem was written for Billie Holiday, a fact which multiple sources list (including Bishop herself in a letter to U.T. and Joseph Summers), and Bishop had hoped “someone would set the poem to music so that [she] would record it” (Fountain, 328 & Giroux, 478). Billie Holiday was sort of a friend to Bishop, at least Bishop thought so, and her admiration for her is clear both in her want for the singer to sing her poem and the fact that Bishop “followed [Holiday] from night spot to night spot” (Fountain, 86). Her fascination was so great that she was introduced to Ned Rorem who set and published two of her poems to music, …show more content…
From here, the style of the poem changes drastically. Song three and four depart from the woman in the first two songs and seems to broadly address issues, presumably that the woman from the first songs experiences though this is not explicit. In song three, appears to discuss racism and slavery beginning with discussion of the “at the sea the big ship sinks and dies” which could refer to the trade ships that brought African Americans over (PPL, 36). After discussing the perilous past, song four seems to discuss a sort of call to arms in which the tears, or dew, then feed “black seeds” which grow into an army of flowers. I believe Bishop uses musicality in this poem to exemplify these
First, it is important to mention that this poem was written for Billie Holiday, a fact which multiple sources list (including Bishop herself in a letter to U.T. and Joseph Summers), and Bishop had hoped “someone would set the poem to music so that [she] would record it” (Fountain, 328 & Giroux, 478). Billie Holiday was sort of a friend to Bishop, at least Bishop thought so, and her admiration for her is clear both in her want for the singer to sing her poem and the fact that Bishop “followed [Holiday] from night spot to night spot” (Fountain, 86). Her fascination was so great that she was introduced to Ned Rorem who set and published two of her poems to music, …show more content…
From here, the style of the poem changes drastically. Song three and four depart from the woman in the first two songs and seems to broadly address issues, presumably that the woman from the first songs experiences though this is not explicit. In song three, appears to discuss racism and slavery beginning with discussion of the “at the sea the big ship sinks and dies” which could refer to the trade ships that brought African Americans over (PPL, 36). After discussing the perilous past, song four seems to discuss a sort of call to arms in which the tears, or dew, then feed “black seeds” which grow into an army of flowers. I believe Bishop uses musicality in this poem to exemplify these