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WebLinks: Contexts for Exploring Visual and Verbal Texts |
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Chapter 6 - Mapping Ideas |
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In the links below, you can gain some insight on how to read poetry, learn more about Bishop's life and work, and see some maps that illustrate what Bishop writes about in the poem. You can notice, for example, how the names of seaside towns really do "run out to sea." How does Bishop's poem change your feelings about maps and geography in general? What images in the poem struck you the most?
http://uwc.fac.utexas.edu/media/Handouts/Poetry%20Analysis.pdf
If you are unfamiliar with poetry or have a hard time deciphering it, this handout from the University of Texas' Writing Center will give you some pointers.
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/7
This site comes from the Academy of American Poets and serves as a clearinghouse for information about Elizabeth Bishop. You can click on the link "The Armadillo" and hear her reading one of her own poems. Notice how the poem, like "The Map," contains very little emphasis on the speaker, but renders a highly descriptive and imaginative topography of a space. Bishop was not a "confessional" poet; she was interested physical reality and descriptions of concrete objects.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/thematic/PL0120000.html
In "The Map," Bishop wonders how countries or states get their colors on maps. "Are they assigned, or can countries pick their colors?" she writes. The assignment of colors may be arbitrary, but the use of colors provides an interesting narrative. Look at the use of green, yellow, and purple in this map of the U.S. provided by the Census Bureau. It tells an interesting story of population change.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
Check out this amazing collection of online maps provided by the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas. You can find historical, cultural, and geological maps of just about anyplace on the globe.
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