Words in Air By Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell 928 pages;
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Everyone knows that writers seek
solitude. Without "a room of one's own," it's almost impossible
to find the concentration and time for reflection that any
creative work demands. Perhaps we're less familiar, though, with
an equal need: the writer's thirst for artistic friendship, the
company of a like-minded soul. Words in Air: The Complete
Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is a brilliant testament to the
pleasure and power of good company. This juicily thick volume
collects 30 years of letters between two of the finest American
poets of the last century. Watching their dawning friendship
unfold is sheer delight, and because Bishop and Lowell became so
devoted to entertaining each other with anecdotes, gossip, and
marvelous bits of description, their letters offer some of the
same delights as their richly evocative poems. Bishop describes
a town in Maine so quiet "its heart