“ONE ART” by Elizabeth Bishop

Just considering the title the intelligent reader is sure that the poem will be about art, but he’s curious to know which particular art the poetess might refer to.

As for the layout the poem is arranged into 5 stanzas of 3 lines, while the last one is quatrain and interrupts the regular pattern of the text, which mainly consists in tercets.

The function of the lines, following the comma, is to provide an explanation of the previous lines.

Looking at the first line the reader can recognize a kind of refrain. Indeed, the sentence “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” is repeated in stanzas 2,4 and 6. Also the word disaster appears so many times in the text.

The function of the refrain is to stick an important concept in the mind of the reader.  

In the third stanza, for the first time, in the economy of the poem the speaker makes a reference to what can be lost without the loss to create a disaster and makes a list of what she means as a non-tragic loss.

The rhyme scheme is ABA in the first 3 stanzas, while is ABAA in the last one, whose the first line is an example of consonants.

The poetess speaks to a ”You” , who is the person that she lost and reminds the recipient that losing things and people is a part of life and we have to become master of the art of losing because even if this losses can seem a disaster, the life go on exactly as before.

The ironic tone, which is set between parenthesis suggest that missing people we love is a disaster.

Verbs also provide meaningful information; past forms refer to the speaker’s losses overtime, while the present tense shows her current nostalgia and regret. There are also some imperatives (“Lose something”, “Accept the fluster”, “Practice losing”, “Look!”, “Write it!”)

The register is informal, indeed, there are lots of contractions, like “Isn’t” or “Wasn’t” and lots of figures of speech:

Enjambement:

“So many things seem filled with the intent/to be lost that their loss is no disaster”

“Accept the fluster/ of lost door keys, the hour badly spent”

“Places, and names, and where it was you meant/ to travel”

“And look! My last, or/next-to-last, of three loved houses went”

“-even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture/I love). I shan’t have lied. It’s evident/”

Metaphor:

The poet can be read as a metaphor, indeed the title may suggest both the art of losing and the art of writing poems.

Assonance:

“The Art of losing isn’t hArd to mAster”

“PlAces, And nAmes, And where it ..”

Alliteration:

“So Many Things SeeM fiLLed wiTH The inteNT/ to be LoST THat Their LoSS is no disaSTer”

The poem conveys a sense of loss, impotence, sadness and love and teach us that losing things is not so important, while losing people and significant conditions is  much more serious and we need to learn the art of survival after a loss.