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“The Armadillo” was first published in June 22, 1957 in The New Yorker . It was later collected in Elizabeth Bishop's third poem collection, Questions of Travel , in the part called “ Brazil .” Bishop wrote this poem based on some fragments of verse that she wrote in Vassar College (Miller 474). Originally, This poem is titled “The Owl's Nest” (Dickie 121). Her descriptions about the “illegal fire balloons,” “owls,” and “armadillo” are her experience of watching the festival of St. John's Day in Brazil . St. John's Day is on June 24. It is also the shortest day in the Southern Hemisphere. Brazilians usually set out fire balloons to celebrate St. John . This special custom impressed Bishop, and she never got tired to share her experience of watching fire balloons in her letters to friends in America . She wrote to Anny Bauman in 1955. In the letter, she describes the fire balloon as something dangerous but beautiful: “Fireballoons are supposed to be illegal but everyone sends them up anyway… They are so pretty—one's of two minds about them” (qtd. in Costello 76).
As Bishop puts in the subtitle, this poem is dedicated to her life-long friend, Robert Lowell. In 1957, Bishop went to New York and met Lowell in Boston and Castine. In Boston , 1957, Robert Lowell heard Bishop read this poem for the first time. He loved this poem and was inspired by it. After read “The Armadillo,” Lowell wrote “Skunk Hour,” which was dedicated to Bishop. As he mentioned,
The dedication is to Elizabeth Bishop, because reading her suggested a way of breaking through the shell of my old manner. Her rhythms, idiom, images and stanza structure seemed to belong to a later century. “Skunk Hour” is modeled on Miss Bishop's “The Armadillo,” a much better poem and one I had had heard her read and later carried around with me. Both “Skunk Hour” and “The Armadillo” use short line stanzas, start with drifting description, and end with a single animal (qtd. in Goldenshorn 184).
Although Lowell was inspired by Bishop's “The Armadillo,” “Skunk Hour” has many differences from “The Armadillo.” The main difference, according to David Kalstone, is that “Skunk Hour” is a more “ historical poem.” This is also the main different between Bishop's and Lowell 's writing style. Bishop is never as confessional as Lowell . Compared with Lowell 's “Skunk Hour” that is clearly in first person narration, Bishop's “The Armadillo” presents the “whole natural scene rather than the human and historical one” (Kalstone 187). |
