One Art Poem

Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “One Art”, really stuck with me. I believe everyone can relate to this poem. Who hasn’t suffered from a loss? Everyone can relate to Bishop’s poem because loss is a part of life and everyone will encounter it at some point in their life. Bishop opens with, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master…” in fact this is said multiple times throughout the poem. I believe she takes this approach to remind the reader as they read the poem that she truly believes it is possible to overcome a loss no matter the type or severity. She continues with, “…so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.” I believe that this statement is so relevant to everyday life. Everyday people are losing things; a small example would be someone losing their train of thought. Most possessions are lost at some point in our lives, it’s really not a foreign concept. To be more specific, when you accept the fact that you will lose things, then losing really isn’t that hard to master.

Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t that hard to master.” This stanza expresses the need to understand that value of the loss. If a person becomes familiar with losing quite often then there is nothing that he/she can’t accomplish. This idea can be a really good thing, but also a really bad thing. It is necessary to appreciate something before and after you lose it. Taking it further, Bishop leads the reader to conclude that we should accept the fact that things will get lost. There isn’t anything we can do about it, so why