Friday, October 13, 2006

Friday Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop
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.

1 Comments:

At 6:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I <3 this poem, which I wrote what was probably my first poem analysis about circa 8th grade. This poem is the heart of my adolescent experience in a way that is inconceivable to pack in a such a small space and impossible to extrapolate from.

A pure wow of silliness, and off to St. Louis. And a new rhyme!

 

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