Elizabeth BISHOP (1911-1979) was an American poet whose drive for perfectionism led to the publication of only 101 poems throughout her life, yet despite this she is still recognised as one of great poets of the 20th century. While her contemporaries such as Adrienne RICH and Sylvia PLATH incorporated intensely expressed feminist issues within their work, Elizabeth BISHOP crafted a peculiar world of poetry, like her seniors Marianne MOORE and Emily DICKINSON.
One of Barbara HAMMER’s interests was the lives and works of female artists, particularly with women who were involved in queer culture. Welcome to This House falls under this category, and is a documentary focused on BISHOP’s houses and her lovers. HAMMER filmed in places where BISHOP lived, from Nova Scotia, Cape Cod, Vassar University, Key West, Brazil and Cambridge to Boston. The most impressive location is a house where Elizabeth BISHOP stayed with her most famous lover, the wellknown Brazilian landscape designer and architect Lota de Macedo SOARES. This beautiful house in the mountains of Petrópolis features beautiful landscapes. “The space and structures we work in influence our art,” said HAMMER. She may have come to this realization through the reverence of nature within BISHOP’s poems written in this house. [KWON Eunhye]