Collinson Library: A-Z POETRY: One Art

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop (1977)

“One Art” explores the idea that nothing lasts and thus that loss is an inevitable part of life. In fact, the speaker claims that with practice people can learn to accept and even "master" the "art" of losing. Its form is that of a villanelle: five stanzas rhyming aba and a sixth rhyming abaa.

POEM: “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)

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.