works of psychology by such leading figures as
Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. Existential phi-
losophy further brought the idea of man as an
individual being to the fore. Art, then, became
less about creating beauty for all mankind and
more about establishing individual and singular
modes of expression. This in turn led to the
abandonment of established forms in both poetry
and the visual arts.
For instance, painters like Marc Chagall and
Pablo Picasso were producing canvases that
challenge traditional methods of visual expres-
sion. Authors such as William Faulkner and
James Joyce stretched thelimits of traditional
narrative with the introduction of the stream-
of-consciousness style of writing. Writers such
as Gertrude Stein and E. E. Cummings rearranged
established language structures, playing with syntax
and grammar. Leading modernist poets included
T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and although Bishop
was writing somewhat after the peak of modernism,
her work is most often ascribed to this movement.
It tackles nontraditional subjects (an ugly fish) in
nontraditional forms (free verse).
Confessional Poetry
Bishop’s work lies somewhere between modern-
ism and confessional poetry, that is, poetry that
includes intimate detailsabout the poet’s life. It
forgoes traditional poetic form and topics, yet it
falls just short of the deeply personal admissions
characteristic of the confessional movement. Per-
haps her lasting popularity stems from this very
versatility. Nevertheless, the two major poetic influ-
ences in her life were the modernist poet Marianne
Moore and the confessional poet Robert Lowell.
Furthermore, the peak of the confessional move-
ment took place during the 1960s, the decade in
which Bishop was at her most prolific. The child
of modernism, confessional poetry took individual
forms and expression one step further, leading to
additional experimentation with free verse as well
as with the limits of deeply personal topics.
The movement first surfaced in the 1950s and,
aside from deeply personal topics and free verse
form, was characterized by introspection and an
awareness of psychology. Confessional poetry was
not necessarily about the act of confession but
about the creation of a poetic self, the persona ofFishermen(Image copyright Steve Bower, 2009. Used under license from Shutterstock.com)
The Fish