Bishop and the New Yorker

The New York Times has a long article about the letters between poet Elizabeth Bishop and the New Yorker.

"A world-class procrastinator and Olympian ditherer, Bishop sometimes didn’t finish a poem for decades."

"At times the politeness of poet and magazine seems that of two countries about to go to war — tactful enough with her editors (though she felt that reading the magazine was like “eating a quilt”), in letters to friends Bishop groused about the revisions proposed. (“They once put 23 commas in a long poem of mine,” she groaned.)"

--and, slyly slid in under the discussions of the editorial processes of the New Yorker, William Logan does get in a swift kick here and there:

"The New Yorker has suffocated at times beneath a mask of wry gentility. For all its glossy reputation, the magazine still turns up its nose at stories and poems that make too many demands on the reader. It’s a middlebrow journal for people who would like to be highbrows — and perhaps for highbrows who love a little slumming. The cartoons, as Biele notes, provide an antiphonal chorus to the reckless consumerism of the ads."

-Ouch! Wonder how many times he's been rejected there?