Arrival at Santos

“Arrival at Santos” is written in ten stanzas of four lines each, or quatrains. While the poem has no strict metering scheme, it does contain a rhyme scheme of ABCB. In fact, the poem reveals an interior monologue written in ballad form. Ballads are traditionally short stories that depict heroic events, but they can also depict humorous events of characters who are held up for ridicule. The ballad usually contains quatrains, stanzas that are four lines each, that have an ABCB rhyme scheme. Although it depicts the mundanity of travel, putting “Arrival at Santos” in a ballad form elevates the story to something of greater significance. Read another way, using the ballad form may be a way for Bishop to subtly mock the unrealistically grandiose expectations of the speaker, as if the speaker is trying to make out of this simple, logistical aspect of their journey something heroic. That attempt is doomed to fail and lead to disappointment.

The interior monologue mimics what a speaker might say to themselves while going through an experience, narrating what is happening in the moment. It allows the reader to accompany the speaker on their journey in real-time.