Dead Poets Live
Bishop and Lowell
London
Dead Poets Live returned to The Print Room with two giants of the American mid-century: Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.
When they met in 1947, they met as fans, each on the cusp of literary fame. Drawn to each other as poets, their lives quickly became involved. Admiration blossomed into devoted friendship, and while it might have been something more, the friendship was to be a mainstay in the turbulence and heartbreak of their separate lives, a hilarious, candid and lifelong exchange of poems, books, ideas, feelings, observations, whims, gossip and jokes.
Performers
Miranda Richardson, Elizabeth Bishop, is a much-loved and highly acclaimed stage, film and television actress. She made her film debut playing Ruth Ellis in Dance with a Stranger and went on to receive Academy Award nominations for Damage and Tom & Viv. For Damage, she won a BAFTA and has also won Golden Globe Awards for Enchanted April and the TV film Fatherland.
Stanley Townsend‘s film credits include Mike Newell’s Into the West, Jim Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father, The Van by Stephen Frears, Peter Greenaway’s The Tulse Luper Suitcases, The Libertine with Johnny Depp. His theatre appearances include The Alice Trilogy directed by Ian Rickson and Shining City directed by Conor McPherson, for which he was nominated for Best Actor at The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, 2004.
Proceeds from the evening went to the refugee charity Safe Passage.
‘Safe Passage works to ensure every person fleeing persecution can access a safe and legal route to a place where they can live a full and dignified life. We’re extremely grateful for the support of Dead Poets Live, every inch of which will go to supporting the most vulnerable unaccompanied minors to reach safety.’
Photos of the event
Poems read
Elizabeth Bishop
‘The Fish’
‘The Bight’
from ‘At The Fishhouses’
‘Sandpiper’
‘The Armadillo’
‘Aubade and Elegy’
‘One Art’
‘The Moose’
‘North Haven’
Robert Lowell
‘The Old Flame’
‘Waking In The Blue’
‘Skunk Hour’
‘Waking Early Sunday Morning’
‘Elizabeth Bishop 4’
‘Water’
Reading list
Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters, ed. Robert Giroux and Lloyd Schwartz (New York, 2007)
Poems: The Centenary Edition, ed. Saskia Hamilton (London, 2011)
Colm Tóibín, On Elizabeth Bishop (Princeton, 2015)
Lowell
Collected Poems (London, 1997)
Selected Poems: Poet to Poet (London, 2006)
Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence, ed. Thomas Travisano and Saskia Hamilton
David Kalstone, Becoming a Poet: Elizabeth Bishop with Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell
Michael Hofmann, Where Have You Been? Selected Essays
Banner images and photographs of the event © Tara Rowse
