The chapter examines literary translation as a fundamental part of Elizabeth Bishop’s creative effort and as a valuable context for the reading of her original works. It demonstrates how Bishop’s translations from several foreign languages (Ancient Greek, French, Portuguese, Spanish), which span a variety of genres (comedy, diary, short stories, lyric poetry, avant-garde prose poems, ballad, folk songs), and which she worked on throughout her career, relate to her own poetry’s topics, styles, poetic strategies, and language. Her views of translation are discussed in relation to her poetic principles, and it is suggested that translation as a creative stance exploring the complex interrelations between the foreign and the familiar is an essential principle underlying Bishop’s own poetics.