When I bought this book, I had no idea it was based on Zizioulas' doctoral thesis. Had I known that I probably would not have bought it. However, far from being a dry academic treatise on the Church, this book is one of the most magisterial and profound works I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The essential argument is that in the first centuries of the history of the Church, there did not exist the concept of the unseen, universal Church of which local Churches were "a part". The local Church WAS the Catholic Church by virtue of its celebration of the Eucharist under one Bishop. Zizioulas argues that it was only in the 4th century that the word "Catholic" when applied to the Church came to mean the Universal Church. Early on, "Catholic" was used in its Aristotelian sense of denoting "the whole" or the "fullness" of something. Hence, where Christ was present, there in the local Church was the Catholic Church. A most profound study that shakes modern conceptions of the Church at almost every turn.

Elizabeth Bishop was an elusive and multi-faceted woman. Gaining a glimpse of her through her poetry, some details through her prose, she has remained enigmatic, despite the many volumes of criticism and biography dedicated to her life and art. Her paintings show us another side of her creativity, and in "Exchanging Hats" we are provided with a greater depth of understanding of her creative abilities. The paintings themselves, spare and pragmatic, are as geographical and domestic as her poetry. More subtle than they first appear,they illuminate her life from a different perspective. For anyone interested in Bishop,this book is essential.

This book has some very high quality poems. Although all of them are not prize winners, Bishop uses incredible imagery, wording, and rythm to create her piece. I believe that more of Bishop's work should be included in the classic poetry curiculum.

This book is an outstanding analysis of "reading and writing nature" in the works of four great American poets. I found the book specific and compelling. It helped clarify for me the problems of perception and cognition as they have been analyzed, written about and lived by American poets. It enhanced my own experience of and appreciation for these writers. The book also opens a door onto the larger dimensions of nature that can become locked or occluded through disuse. I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the relationship between art, nature and the imagination.

Georgiana and Elizabeth were the first and second wives of William 5th Duke of Devonshire. Their tale is an eighteenth century one, but it is also a twenty-first century one. They had a friendship which eclipsed everything that society of their day thought was acceptable and it is only now that the truth is emerging. The best way to find out about the two Duchesses of Devonshire is to read the recent biography about Georgiana by Amanda Foreman which tells the brilliant story of the two duchesses amid a world of love, romance, deceit, adultery and money, from Georgiana's point of view. Then read this book from the 1890's written by a descendant of Elizabeth Foster, one member of the curious Devonshire menage-a-trois. There are letters from two-hundred years ago that tell a first hand account of events in Miss Foreman's book. They are fascinating and you meet many famous people of the day first hand, including Melbourne, Byron, George IV and Fox. I can't wait to read the modern day version of Elizabeth's story which can be found in Caroline Chapman's new book telling the story of Elizabeth Foster: 'Elizabeth and Georgiana: The Duke of Devonshire and His Two Duchesses' which has just been published. For any one who has not yet read about the Beautiful Duchess, her best friend and her husband it's about time you did. Vere Foster's book is essential reading, especially if you want to get an overview of the subjects of two very important eighteenth century figures and subjects of at least one brilliant modern bestselling biography. Read this and then read the two modern biographies and find out the truth!

In this work, L. Gluck shows the reader her true strong emotion, and the enthalpy of love. Her images are gripping -- sometimes stark and at other times lush and vibrant. Common to all her pieces is the ability to move the reader to feel emotion. Maybe it is a sudden gasp of revelation of connection or perhaps the moment comes later, when the poetry resurfaces from deep in memory. Beware, emotions will be evoked.

Renée Curry's White Women Writing White is an admirably well researched, independent, brave, and often brilliant and startling book. It will undoubtedly prove germinal (and controversial) in critical whiteness studies. It provides an absolutely new perspective on the poets Hilda Doolittle (H. D.), Elizabeth Bishop, and Sylvia Plath. It draws attention, truly for the first time, to the racial signifiers in the texts of these three great poets. It treats whiteness as a marked characteristic in the same way as blackness and Asianness have traditionally functioned in mainstream American literature and culture. It repeatedly and convincingly locates racial meanings in passages that have never been read in that light before. This book transforms the landscape. It is the most significant new work on these poets in years.

This book is fresh an uplifting...such a witty, charming author. I picked this book up in Parati,Brazil and am thankful for it!

Unpretentious, yet magically beautiful.
A young girl's diary of three years of her life in the end of the XIX century in a small diamond-extracting town in Brazil.
Not meant for publication, the author gathered her writings to organize a booklet for her grand-daughters. When she was convinced to publish it, she could never dream it would turn out to be translated into many other languages.
A must for literature lovers.

Diary of a girl in rural Brazil in the late 1890's; now translated into English, the book has a charm of its own that transcends time and place. Diary entries are short, so the book can be read in bits and pieces. But should not be missed by anyone who loves life and the often acerbic observations of a child. Sadly, the original in Portuguese is no longer in print in either Brazil or Portugal, but the English version lives on. Don't miss it.

Elizabeth Bishop disliked the sound of her own voice, and often refused to permit recordings (even private ones) of her readings. Bishop's executor, Alice Methfessel, respected the poet's keen protective instincts, and allowed no commercial issue in the two decades since Bishop's death. As a result, the speaking voice of this great poet has remained a mystery, even as Bishop's following and reputation has grown by bounds.

I still remember the shock of hearing Bishop's voice for the first time. Bishop's voice is so -- I don't know any other word for it -- so ordinary. This is as true on her early recordings (from the late 1940s) as on her mature readings (mid 1970s). At times, the listener is tempted to think she does not understand the meaning of what she is saying: she is so shy about drawing attention to her poetic craft, and so embarrassed about revealing any hidden emotional content, that she almost seems to be reading the work of another person. "Don't you realize," I want to shout, "that you are speaking some of the greatest lines in American poetry?" But we must remember that Bishop's self-effacements, however ineffective in a public reading, are part of the reason why her poems are so emotionally satisfying. Meaning and memory resonate in the most lightly observed surface details.

I would highly recommend this recording to anyone who already knows Elizabeth Bishop's work and biography -- it is an excellent reference, even if it is not the most entertaining recording. However, I would caution a newcomer to Bishop NOT to start here. It is far better to read the poems and the letters first so that you have a sense of the many masks this poet wears. Another good place to start is the hour-long documentary on Elizabeth Bishop in the "Voices and Visions" series, which appeared years ago on public television (available in many libraries). James Merrill and Mary McCarthy are interviewed about their friendship with Elizabeth Bishop and make many illuminating comments. Blythe Danner -- Gwyneth Paltrow's mom! -- reads the poems of Bishop, and frankly does a better job of it than Bishop does.

i bought this tape on a road trip and logged the miles spellbound by how Bishop's voice and inflection turned the poems I blew through in college into delightful, insightful stories. This tape, and i'll bet the others in this series, is an example of why poetry needs to be heard, rather than read. Send these tapes to schools everywhere!

The Bishop on this tape is a surprise. She reads easily, congenially, interrupts herself to comment on what she's doing. She's funny, and the humor that's under the surface of the poems gets to bubble up at odd moments. It's a great selection of poems, and it's fantastically handy to have the booklet of the texts of the poems (some of which are interestingly different from the versions Bishop reads) tucked into the pocket in the front of the elegant package. J.D. McClatchy's introduction to her work is, as always, illuminating.

Elizabeth Bishop's use of structure (especially the villanelle) blows me away. This is a satisfying collection of poems because they're all there, and it's fairly easy to randomly thumb your finger through and stop on a poem that you don't know, but will enjoy. Though I know that it wasn't the goal of this book, I personally wish I could have found out more about her biography. A nice present to give to people who are a fan of "One Art" but who haven't read anything else by her.

Gosh, it is hard to sum up one's feelings about the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. She is one of those artists, like Shakespeare and Mozart and Cervantes, whose work contains such perfection it seems almost sacrilegious to comment upon it.

And she was ALWAYS a good poet. This volume proves it by publishing much of her juvenilia alongside more mature, better known poems as the wonderful "Florida", "Sestina", and the majestic "The Fish", a poem I enjoy teaching to my students every semester as a supreme example of imagery (I defy them to find instances of abstract language in the poem; there aren't many). Also included is an astonishing series of translations Bishop rendered over the years, mostly of South American poets, including Octavio Paz.

All in all, this is a treasure trove, a book for the ages, and a reminder of what we lost with Bishop's early death at age 68.

Elizabeth Bishop was a poet's poet. Without fail, I return to this book and re-read it at least once a year, and without fail, Bishop's work continues to become increasingly important to me both as a reader, and as a poet. If you are a serious reader of poetry, you must own this book. If you are at all serious about writing poetry, you must own this book.