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 loved 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!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop
Bishop (1911 – 1979) is one of the great contemporary American poets. Like a number of other poets, she studied art and considered becoming a painter. The poet Robert Lowell said, “Elizabeth Bishop is the contemporary poet that I admire most …. There’s a beautiful completeness to all of Bishop’s poetry. I don’t think anyone alive has a better eye than she had: The eye that sees things and the mind behind the eye that remembers.”
Her epitaph is taken from the last two lines of her poem “The Bight” and has a haunting eternality:
All the untidy activity continues,
awful but cheerful.
Deborah – Thanks for posting this amazing, perfect poem. I have reread it a number of times and now find its careful structure an amazing poetic feat of craftmanship, a polished gem. I completely agree with EB in that “The art of losing isn’t hard to master;”. it is something we have to learn to do in so many ways during our lifetimes.
Her epitath is perfect! WoW!!! G
G,
Bishop is a poetry god, no question. Also, her letters are amazing, and when she was in Brazil for 15 years, she wrote a lot of them. I’m so glad you liked this poem.
I remember reading this poem in college and loving the parenthesis at the end, “(Write it!)” It feels so immediate and true. Life is full of “untidy activity” that goes on—the mark of a great poet, she can get to a human truth in the simplest of words.
C,
Yes, that “Write it!” is an extraordinary call to action. I’m so happy to have you checking in here.