One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
– Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.
-Elizabeth Bishop
Tags: Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
Dolphin says:
she starts very nicely but the ending could have been better.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master, but it is serious buisness…
But the poem “Insomnia” by her is even better.
I just fall in love with poems that have “sea” and “blue” in them….
“where the heavens are shallow as the sea”
March 31st, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Neha says:
you didnt get the soul of the poem. She earlier talks about tangible things like keys… her home, her country… then she talks about intangible things like badly spent hours…
In the end… in two lines, she tries to talk of the one she lost, the one most valuable. And she tries to sound detached…
April 1st, 2006 at 10:49 am
kruz says:
after reading this im feelin completely lost…yeah art of losing isnt at all hard to master…on the positive side at least im sure about something!!!
April 3rd, 2006 at 11:33 am