Arrival at Santos

“Arrival at Santos” is the opening poem of Elizabeth Bishop’s book, Questions of Travel (1965). Bishop began the poem in 1951 upon her arrival in Brazil. Prior to writing this poem, Bishop had traveled broadly, living in Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, Europe, and Florida. She lived in Brazil for 15 years with her lover, the heiress and architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Many of Bishops subsequent poems explore the landscape of Brazil and its effect on her subjective experience.

“Arrival at Santos” focuses on precise details of her environment, depicting a scene of her entry into the country and using the description to explore and expose the subtle shift in the psychological state of her speaker. Unlike many confessional poets of her time, Bishop’s speaker remains distant, revealing their emotional state only through subtle cues. The narrator can appear to be self-mocking in the way they treat themselves as a “tourist” (Line 7).

Poet Biography

Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts but spent her childhood years in Great Village, Nova Scotia. Born to William Thomas and Gertrude May Bishop, Elizabeth lost her father when she was only eight months old, and her mother, who suffered from mental illness, was institutionalized when Bishop was about five years old.