News at Eleven: [Robert] Lowell, the greatest poet ever

to be descended from the high Wasp line, never too far from Boston and New York, should have been at home in the world; and yet he was restless, almost vertiginous in his sometimes self-destructive energies. [Elizabeth] Bishop equated that dangerous energy with his life. Here are the final stanzas of "North Haven":

Years ago, you told me it was here
(in 1932?) you first "discovered girls"
and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.
You had "such fun," you said, that classic summer.
("Fun"--it always seemed to leave you at a loss. . . )

from The New Yorker: Works on Paper: The letters of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell

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