One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

 

 

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.

 

One Art under study is a lyrical poem, written by Elizabeth Bishop. It is made up of six tercets with a rhyming pattern of ABA, except the last stanza, which is composed of four lines with a rhyming couplet to end. At first glance the theme of the poem is loss, however with a linear analysis, the reader gets a more explicit and deeper meaning behind the main idea Bishop tried to express.

The poem opens with the line: ???"The art of losing isn't hard to master???". It is a striking way to commence a poem as the reader, upon reading the title, does not expect 'losing' to be classified as an art. Losing is unpleasant and stating it as an art - which is anything protraying beauty and evoking pleasant aspects - is an ironic affirmation. Adding "isn't hard to master" adds to the irony of this line because instead of simply stating "is easy" or a phrase along these lines, Bishop makes it seem as though losing were a goal one is/was trying to achieve. By doing this, the tone of the poem can already be identified as sarcastic.

The second stanza and third lines also follow through with the sarcastic tone as the narrator tries to deny that her losses have hurt her. The lines clearly show that the narrator is disgusted and disappointed by all that are meant to be lost and therefore uses irony to say that things are meant to be lost so what's the point of giving up and grieving over these losses? It is as though the voice is giving up on grieving over such things maybe because she has lost so much and is 'calling forfeat' and accepting the fact that she keeps on losing.

The second stanza's first line may be a hyperbole (an exaggeration) because as much as she has lost, she can count up her losses as though she had lost a thing a day, or that losing was so common to her and she so often lost something that she took it as a habitude and expected to lose something each day. "???Accept the fluster/ of lost door keys, the hour badly spent." if taking into account Bishop's life and past, the 'lost door keys' here refers to the loss of a place to stay. 

Losing one's keys results in being locked outside and thus she having 'lost her keys' so often, means that she had to keep finding a place to stay. The 'hour badly spent' here therefore means it is a waste of time getting annoyed, frustrated, and having to look for what one has lost - 'Accept the fluster' and move on. And the last line of the second stanza is the repetition of the very first line of the poem. This repetition emphasises the ironic tone of the poem and states that the loser gets used to losing.

Next, the first line of the third tercet is another example of the ironic tone of this poem. It is ironic because it states that one should 'try' losing -  "practice" to lose is really the opposite of the narrator's thoughts because nobody wishes to experience losing or to lose something purposely as losing is an accidental process (that is undesirable) and practicing for an accident is abnormal.

Bishop uses internal rhyme in this line (this is where two [or more] words rhyme within a single line) with the words 'father' and 'foster' to create a pleasant effect though still using the ironic tone.

In the second and third lines of this tercet, Bishop refers to losing "places and names and where it was you meant to travel." Again, if related this sentence to her life, it reflects her memorable locations that have marked her life but that she had 'lost' - either to time or to events that led her to leaving these places behind. 

'...and names" refers to the many people she knew but that again, with time, was forced to leave or that she forgot. 'Names' here is used instead of 'people' was the matter would have ruined the flow of the stanza and probably the message she is trying to convey. 'Where you meant to travel' here refers to Brazil which she visited and was meant to stay for about two weeks, but ended up staying fifteen years. She 'lost' this place because it because her home instead of just a z travel discovery. It could also refer to the many places she wished to visit but 'lost' the opportunity or will.

The voice in the first three tercet is in the third person as if Bishop wanted to avoid making it obvious that she was talking about herself. By doing this she is generalising the idea of losing and by putting it to the third person, she is adding the idea to the sarcastic tone because it it like she is commanding one to lose. Or she could be addressing herself - soliloquy that adds even more to the irony because in this way, it is as if she is indirectly insulting herself.

Then in the fourth stanza, the voice changes and it in first person and referring to herself. This causes the first three stanzas to seem like an introduction of what it is the narrator is trying to express. Other poets often gets straight to the point right from the beginning however Bishop uses periphrasis and repetitions to emphasise on the subject thus making the reader wonder what it is that makes her say what she says.

"???I lost my mother's watch" here, means much more than she having lost a simple time-measuring device. 'Watch' here means 'guidance' or 'keep' which, if once more taken into Bishop's life, refers to her mother being taken away. The even happened early in Bishop's childhood - her mother was institutionalised because of a mental illness. The rest of the line and the one following refer to Bishop having lost "???three loved houses". These are: her parents' her grandparents' and possibly her father's family's who had taken custody of her when she was a child or her and her companion's house in Brazil.

If taking a glance back at the second line in the second stanza, Bishop brings this idea of having to find places to stay because of the process of losing. This means that the tone of the poem sound depresses because it is a sign of complaining and actually not being able to let go of old pain - contradictory to what the narrator previously wanted the reader to think.

However, by exclaiming "And look!" the ironic remains, as if to say it it not such a big deal. 

To the end of the stanza, the very last line of the poem is repeated again for emphasis and beauty.

The next tercet beings with another rant, yet ends with that reoccurring sarcasm claiming that these losses were 'no disaster'. The first line refers to having "lost two cities, lovely ones". Once again, this can be reflected into Bishop's life. Here the two cities could be her grandparent's farm in Nova Scotia and the one she resided in for fifteen years, in Brazil - both of which she loved dearly but had to leave. The first one because he moved to Worcester, Massachusetts with them and the second city she left because her companion had committed suicide so she decided to leave though not because she really wanted to. 

The 'realms I owned' that she refers to are the many places that she had at heart. Once again the farm, her home in Brazil, a house she bought in Florida and possibly others that she never went back to. The 'two rivers' could be the Amazone and another, however 'rivers' here could mean something deeper and figurative though it is likely that she could be literally referring to a real river.

'A continent' she refers to as having lost is South America, which she loved enormously. Again, she states that their loss was no disaster, adding to the irony.

In the last stanza/tercet, she is addressing someone. This someone could be the one she loved and states that she loves this person's 'joking voice'. This tercet rounds up the whole poem and the reader finally understands why she had made a long discourse about losing being a disaster. 

However, losing this person was the disaster, compared to all other losses. The last line states: "...though it may look (write it!) like a disaster." The 'may look' shows that the narrator had some difficulties accepting the loss of this loved one and adding these words, she is trying to euphemify and make the thought less hurtful that stating 'is a disaster' which would be much too plain and flat, without the dramatic fight she is having mentally.

The ('write it!') again shows how much difficulty Bishop had accepting and was having an emotional war with herself. The reader can see that she has troubles with expressing herself completely and prefers to keep her relationship problems to herself, without being exposed.

One Art is a poem describing losing with a very sarcastic tone throughout, until the last stanza which seems like a confusion between depressiong, love and a moment where all tension is released. Elizabeth Bishop was a poet who went through many unfortunate events like the death of her father, her mother's metal illness and her companion committing suicide in Brazil. 

She describes these events as losses, yet with irony as she debates that they were no disaster and mocks herself by affirming that she too had been honest by saying that all her other losses were no disaster compared to her greatest loss, the one mentioned in the last tercet: love, the only loss she accepts as a disaster.