A Miracle for Breakfast

“This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams (1934)

William Carlos Williams is a well-known 20th-century American poet, and “This Is Just to Say” is one of his most famous poems. As with Bishop’s “A Miracle for Breakfast,” Williams’s poem concerns food. Unlike the people in Bishop’s poem, Williams’s speaker enjoys a pleasurable breakfast as he eats

the plums

that were in

the icebox

These plums aren't for the speaker, so the person whose plums the speaker ate might feel glum, like the people who only got a crumb and a drop of coffee for breakfast. Aside from the outward subject of food and breakfast, Williams’s poem and Bishop’s poem each address themes of alienation and power, as the speaker in Williams’s poem isn’t near the person whose plums they ate, but they possess the power to eat them. A part of the Imagist movement, Williams, like Bishop, demonstrates his ability to craft a keen picture in this poem.

“Letter to N.Y.” by Elizabeth Bishop (1955)

As “A Miracle for Breakfast” is partly inspired by scenes Bishop witnessed while in New York during the 1930s, it’s possible to describe it as a New York poem. Another New York poem of Bishop’s is “Letter to N.