postcoitus’s pillow talk

So can Bishop aliterate or what?

In her poem, “From the Country to the City,” Bishop compares America(?) to a clown, at the head of this clown is the city. And while she did not specify which city she was referencing, I automatically associated it with New York.

For one, it is obviously on the edge of the country. She rises upwards from the, “league-boots of land,” I thought of it as a clown laying across the length of the United States, his boots being the West Coast. And his head, his head is the East Coast, or more specifically New York. The “satin-stripes on harlequin’s trousers tights” she uses to represent miles of winding asphalt across the country. This is the first line she introduces the concept of the city–for all intents and purposes, we’ll say New York–depicted as a harlequin.

“His tough trunk, dressed in tatters” is the Midwest, the hardened and worn Dust Bowl of America where farmers have struggled, especially in the early 20th century.

But then you arrive at his head, his brain, with its “tall dunce-cap” and “shows and sights.” The brain, the city, New York, is done-up and painted to look flashy “with lamé and lights” but really it is just the ridiculous head of a harlequin. It is, as she says, the “wickedest clown.” It, typically New York, draws in the sons and daughters of the rest of the country. They drive across those “satin-stripes” to arrive in a city where they’ll probably never make it, despite their hopes and dreams.

Her use of aliteration: “The long, long legs, league-boots of land…” “his tough trunk dressed in tatters,” implies repetition. The pilgrims who consistantly make the journey to New York to escape the monotony of their homes only to fall into the monotony of the city.

At the end, the rest of the country, “the long black length of body,” begs the city to, “Subside,” and send its children home.