Elizabeth Bishop’s 1930s poem, Paris, 7 A.M. invites her reader into her Parisian apartment to gaze at a map of the city and study the beautiful, orderly, clock-like divergence of avenues, eerily reminiscent of early twentieth century war. Bishop has a fascination with the ways in which maps represent history, apparent in the very first poem of North and South, her first compilation of poetry. But Bishop doesn’t stop at the aerial, cartographic view—she delves deep into the nooks of Paris, “look down into the courtyard,” she guides your eyes from inside the window. She wonders about the pigeons who take walks on mansard rooftops. Where do they come from? All she knows of these birds are the “carrier-warrior-pigeons” used to transport information in WWI. The still vivid memories of war are apparent in this poem, as are Bishop’s fears and dread for the eminent war on the rise in Germany. Her potent depiction of the damp, dark winter of 1936 is tragically brilliant. Many critics claim that this is an example of Bishop’s surrealism, but the title is clear and absolute, this poem is entirely based in reality. Through a comfortable Bishop tactic, she unravels the dark, damp horrors of history hidden beneath the beautiful layout of France’s coveted city. As if a fighter pilot ripping through the clouds above Paris glanced down and became distracted by the radiant city below, “captured/ by the sequence of squares and squares and circles, circles?”