Disorienting power …

… A Former Student Approaches the Life of Elizabeth Bishop - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

… this polite, famously reticent poet, formerly in the background of a poetic era dominated by her close friend Robert Lowell, has shouldered virtually everyone else aside, including, in a remarkable (if only temporary?) adjustment of rankings, Lowell himself. Just as remarkable is the fact that so much of the attention Bishop has received is focused on what she badly wanted to keep out of sight: her life story.