"One Art," by Elizabeth Bishop

Author: Elizabeth Bishop

1 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.

2 Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

3 Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

4 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.

5 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.

6 —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.

7 Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1926-1979. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC. Source: The Complete Poems 1926-1979 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983)

DMU Timestamp: March 29, 2019 18:11