Great Regulars: Like many people, I associate my discovery

of Elizabeth Bishop with the day I came to poetry. In my little local library, on a deserted 1968 afternoon, I happened upon "The Fish"--and "The Man-Moth":

He emerges
from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks
and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.

I could not stop reading. I ransacked the (very few) poetry books on the shelves for more Bishop.

"The Man-Moth" was [Lloyd] Schwartz's first Bishop, too. He was sitting on the floor, he says, "but if I'd been in a chair, I would have fallen off."

from John Timpane: The Philadelphia Inquirer: Centenary celebration for poet Elizabeth Bishop

~~~~~~~~~~~