Elizabeth Bishop dedicated her poetry to telling 'what really happened'. Yet what really happened in the life on one of the twentieth century's finest and most beloved American poets has eluded readers for years. In this first full biography, Brett Miller pieces together the compelling and painful story of Bishop's life and traces the writing of her brilliantly crafted poems.

"An excellent biography." - New York Times Book Review

"Unlike Lowell and other poets of her time, Bishop disdained the confessional, but Millier's authoritative reading of her poems suggests how they allude glancingly, through ironic veils of fable and allegory, to her homosexuality, her alcoholism, and her paralyzing depression. This biography will act as a powerful corrective to the impression of serene perfection engendered by the greatest of Bishop's poems; they were in no way as easy to write as their author made them seem." - New Yorker