Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, but, on the death of her father just eight months after her birth, Bishop was taken by her mother to live with her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her mother was permanently institutionalized when she was five years old, and Bishop became the pawn of warring family members, eventually being returned to Worcester by her paternal grandparents. Those early traumatic experiences left Bishop with a series of stress-related illnesses and an emotionally restrained personality that was later to characterize her poetry. While attending Vassar College in the early 1930s, Bishop became an ardent admirer of poet Marianne Moore and abandoned thoughts of medical school for the greater attraction of travel. She finally settled in Brazil and lived there for sixteen years. On her return to the United States, Bishop taught at Harvard from 1970 to 1977. Inspired by such events as the exile of her youth and her life as an expatriate in Brazil, Bishop's poetry is known for its meticulous detail and understated style. Her many honors include the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for the combined collection Poems: North and South—A Cold Spring and the 1969 National Book Award for Complete Poems.