The Robert Lowell I like the best is the one who was a dear friend to Elizabeth Bishop. I have read 798 pages of their correspondence—or 459 letters—edited by Saskia Hamilton and published as Words In Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I find it extraordinary, Lowell’s steadfast respect and care for his contemporary who was A. a woman, B. a queer woman, and C. a woman who rejected his advances (he hoped to marry her, at one point, briefly). He championed her career, and it is due to him that she received many of her awards, publications, travel fellowships, residencies, teaching positions, and her Library of Congress appointment. “Dearest Elizabeth…Giroux and everyone at Farrar are terrifically excited about bringing out your collected poems. Then you’ll take your grand and rightful place…” “Dearest Elizabeth: Here we are. You should write a letter to the Chapelbrook Foundation...The grants are from three to four thousand for a year…I think this will go through…I don’t think other sponsors will be necessary, but if they are, we will dig them up.” Yes, I much prefer to view Lowell in relation to this Elizabeth than to the other Elizabeth. I do not like picturing the brilliant Elizabeth Hardwick housekeeping for Lowell, putting out his fires, or to see her heartbroken. He wrote to his friend in 1969: “Dearest Elizabeth—Never forget through your troubles, how strong, moral, inspired all your work has been.”
-Morgan English