My feelings are bit skewed, I think, since i read the first half of the book a few weeks ago, and just finished the second half. 'In the Waiting Room' is great, no doubt about it, and Crusoe in England too. The rest of the book? Meh. I suspect that all the deep interpretations of these poems are more about the reader than the poet, and to be honest, whatever it is that I go to poetry for, Bishop doesn't give it to me. The poems are very pretty, no doubt, and have intellectual heft. I'm not sure what they lack- maybe an appropriate level of (British style) irony? Maybe my problem is rather what's in them: descriptions of art-works, descriptions of mildly surrealistic landscapes (or maybe 'landscapes'). I read a review which praised Bishop's 'sense of place,' and that might sum it up. Lacking much of a sense of place myself, I can't recognize it in others. So it's all my fault that I'm not into Bishop, but I think I can live with it. ( )