Elizabeth's Poem One Art

In life, one can often times become temporarily blind to the value of the beauty that surrounds them; from a simple greeting from a stranger to a beloved’s laugh. Even after it is clear how immense the calamity which one has fallen into, some simply brush it of and attempt to catch a glimpse of the optimism in the situation; however slight. In the poem “One Art”, Elizabeth opens up her poem in a rather light tone with a spoonful of irony which only later magnifies the distress which she feels of her loss. The end rhyme and syntax form a moderately careless tone which is essentially overshadowed by the author’s repentant attitude in the last stanza.

As one reads the poem, the setting that comes to mind is of a lone stranger skipping

That is the mood that Elizabeth has painted for her audience.

In her first four stanzas, she detaches herself from the materialist world and at first the

message seems to be to not fret about things that are lost, because they are “filled with the intent

to be lost”. Her loss begins with something broad, a simple key but then expands into places,

names, and kingdoms. How can one loose a thing that they regard as “loved” and “miss them”

yet continue to reassure themselves that it was not a disaster. As the poem goes on, the tangible things that are lost become more personal, more grand, in the perspective of a typical person.

Yet the author views them as incapable of touching her heart to the level of causing her

tears to flow.

Elizabeth Bishop opens up her true intention for writing the poem in the last stanza.

The syntax of the stanza proves that Elizabeth either lost someone dear to her by her own

negligence of appreciating them or not realizing how valuable he is before it was too late. “

though it may look like(Write it!) like disaster”, she forces herself to write down the

Instead of restating her thought and writing “ the art of loosing”, she writes “it’s evident

the art…” which pushes one to assume that that she needs that final push to emphasize her level

of loss. Elizabeth’s attitude shifts from a confident and humorous one to a heart-aching one

which causes the readers to feel sympathy towards her and be able to understand her, because

everyone has experienced their own version of Bishop’s tragedy. When you loose the love of

your life or they walk out of your life, either your mentality slowly starts to morph into a

pessimistic creature that starts to bring you distress or you finally see what they meant to you and

what you would give up to have them back, a house, kingdom, realm, or continent.

It is as if she listed her loses and grand loses to compare to the loss of her loved one in

hopes of finding that both are similar, yet they are completely on a different level. The kingdoms and rivers can not even possibly compare to the damage that the loss of her loved one has

inflicted upon her. Furthermore, the two attitudes seem to conclude that lines 16-19 was the

cause and 1-15 was the effect. Her poem was filled with understatements, and it was