Elizabeth Bishop started publishing poems about 1935, but her reputation as one of the best American poets has emerged rather slowly. She never rushed into print, and only in her last years did she give public readings of her work. One can think of few other writers who so steadily refused to exploit their "personalities"; yet in her poems a very distinctive voice and attitude can always be sensed. She was honored in a number of ways, and in 1976 she was the first American writer to receive the Books Abroad / Neustadt International Prize for Literature; she was in fact chosen by an international jury of writers who convened at the University of Oklahoma. And in the following year the poet Anthony Hecht, writing in the London Times Literary Supplement, said that "Hers is about the finest product our country can offer the world; we have little by other artists...