Elizabeth Bishop to Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1953)

TO CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE

Antonio Vieira 5, apt. 1101
Leme
June 27th, 1963

Dear Dr. Carlos:
Here is a translation of one of your poems, and I hope you will have time to look at it. I began with this one because it seems to go into English fairly easily-- I hope you'll take my word for it that it makes a very moving poem in English as well as in Portuguese. The translation is quite literal-- except for very small liberties with punctuation, omitting "ands" etc.-- to keep the meter right. I've written in the margin some second choices, or spots where I may be wrong-- but please tell me anything you don't like-- or if you don't like any of it!
I've been asked by a magazine (USA) for translations of Brazilian poetry-- a small, reputable, old magazine, POETRY (Chicago)*--perhaps you know it? I'd like to send them a group of your poems as soon as I can, but with your approval. I am working on A MESA now-- it's much more difficult, naturally, but it's one of those I like best. I've also tried some of the shorter rhymed ones-- they're almost impossible, of course, because of the rhymes-- but I'd like to give the US reader an impression of the range of your poetry, if possible--and I'll write a note explaining the shortcomings of the translations. …{excerpt}

Cordially yours,
Elizabeth Bishop.
{Scher: you might enjoy this more personal side of Bishop and the deference she pays to Andrade}