This essay traces the development of Bishop’s negotiations of gender from the 1930s to the 1970s. We show how Bishop explores an emerging and increasingly embodied subjectivity as her work develops. In particular, we show the way her use of male and female pronouns can be used to trace an increasing interest in gender as a set of inter-relational differences. Beginning with two early poems, we examine the complex ways in which gender identifications are interrogated in relation to ideas of looking and reflection, and are offered as a negotiation of the male literary tradition: specifically here in relation to Tennyson, and to Defoe. We also explore the way constructions of the feminine become more frequent in the writing and are connected to race.