Helena Bonham Carter reads 'Letter to NY' by Elizabeth Bishop for A Poem for Every Autumn Day

Helena Bonham Carter gives a pitch-perfect rendition of the wonderful poem, 'Letter to NY' by the American twentieth-century poet, Elizabeth Bishop. The poem appears in Allie Esiri's anthology A Poem for Every Day of the Year. This was filmed in the lockdown summer of 2020 in Wiltshire, England. Directed by Paul Weiland.
Despite being welcomed with open arms to the pantheon of all-time greats, much of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry plots a struggle to find a sense of belonging, and is marked by an underlying sense of loss and alienation. This poem written to her female friend and object of her affection is powerful in its expression of loss, anxiety and longing.

Letter to NY
By Elizabeth Bishop
Read by Helena Bonham Carter

For Louise Crane

In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.

Видео Helena Bonham Carter reads 'Letter to NY' by Elizabeth Bishop for A Poem for Every Autumn Day канала YouTube Poetry with Allie Esiri