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. Her maternal grandparents decided to keep Bishop from seeing her mother in the institution. They raised her themselves on their farm until Bishop’s wealthy paternal grandparents insisted that she join them in Massachusetts. Bishop was unhappy living there, and developed asthma until they sent her to live with her maternal aunt and uncle, Maude and George Bulmer in another part of Worcester. It was Maude who introduced Elizabeth to poetry.

Bishop’s paternal grandparents paid for her to attend Vassar College where she met the poet Marianne Moore, who would become a lifelong friend and influence on the young poet. Later the poet Randall Jarell would introduce Bishop to the poet Robert Lowell with whom she would maintain another influential relationship.

After college Bishop traveled extensively. Her first book, North and South (1946) won the Houghton Mifflin prize that same year. An expanded version of this collection, North & South – A Cold Spring (1955), won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 when Bishop was living in Brazil. In 1951 she was awarded a travelling fellowship from Bryn Mawr College, which allowed her to travel to Brazil. She intended to stay only a short time but fell in love with the heiress and architect Lota de Macedo Soares, and lived with her in Brazil for fifteen years.

Her third book, Questions of Travel (1965), reflected the influence of living in Brazil on her poetry (such as "Arrival at Santos," but also included poems about her youth in Nova Scotia.  She released her last collection, Geography III (1977), for which she was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Bishop was the first American and first woman to receive the prize.

In 1967 Soares took her own life, and Bishop relocated to the United States, where she taught at the University of Washington, New York University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bishop met Alice Methfessel in 1971 and maintained a relationship with her until her death. Bishop died of an aneurysm on October 6, 1979. After her death, her poems were published in The Complete Poems 1927-1979 (1983).

Poem Text

Bishop, Elizabeth. “Arrival at Santos.” 1965. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The title of this poem informs the reader that the speaker is writing about their arrival at Santos, a port city of Brazil. The end note says it is January, 1952.

The opening lines introduce the setting: “Here is a coast; here is a harbor” (Line 1). The speaker, still on a boat but close enough to land to see the harbor, explains that she and her fellow travelers have only had “a meager diet of horizon” (Line 2), but now that they are approaching the country, they are seeing “some scenery” (Line 2). The speaker is dissatisfied with the scenery, calling it “impractically shaped” (Line 3). She notes that the mountains are “self-pitying” (Line 3) and “sad and harsh” (Line 4) under the green vegetation. On top of the mountains, she sees a “little church” and “warehouses” (Line 5) which are “a feeble pink, or blue” (Line 6), and she describes the palms as “uncertain” (Line 7). After seven lines of description, the speaker addresses themselves as “Oh, tourist” (Line 7) and asks, “Is this how this country is going to answer you // and your immodest demands for a different world” (Lines 8-9). Here, the speaker reveals one of their hopes for coming to Brazil, saying they wanted and still want to find “a better life, and complete comprehension / of both at last, and immediately” (Lines 10-11). After the voyage of 18 days, in which they felt like they were in suspense and suspended in the ocean, the speaker hopes for a revelation “immediately” (Line 11) upon arrival.

In the next stanza the speaker tells themselves to “Finish your breakfast” (Line 13) because the “tender [a small boat] is coming” (Line 13). The speaker notes it is a “strange and ancient craft" (Line 14), flying a strange flag, that the speaker has never seen before, and which they "somehow never thought of there being a flag” (Lines 15-16).

The speaker begins to think about the other normal things that the country must have, including “coins” (Line 17) and “paper money” (Line 18) though “they remain to be seen.” (Lines 18) The speaker moves from the internal world of their thoughts to describing the activities of the moment when they say “And gingerly now we climb down the ladder backward, / myself and a fellow passenger named Miss Breen” (Lines 19-20).

The speaker describes in real time a small occurrence of danger. As the two are “descending into the midst of twenty-six freighters” (Line 21) a boat hook catches on Miss Breen’s skirt. The speaker describes her as being “about seventy, / a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall” (Lines 25-26) and from “Glens Fall // s” (Lines 28). They are both from the same country, and presumably have become acquainted during the eighteen days of their journey.

After this small snag, the passengers are “settled” (Line 29) and heading towards the customs office. The speaker hopes that “The customs officials will speak English” (Line 30) and let them keep their “bourbon and cigarettes”. (Line 31) The speaker makes a generalization about ports, noting that the customs officials are not often welcoming or seem to care about the impression they make. The speaker compares the place to two boring but practical necessities, “soap” and “postage stamps” (Line 32). They take another jab at this new country, saying the glue on postage stamps is “very inferior” (line 38) or else it keeps slipping off “because of the heat” (Line 39).

The speaker wraps up the poem by dismissing the port as being just a non-descript place of necessity, announcing that “We leave Santos at once” (Line 39) for better places, as they are “driving to the interior” (Line 40).