Poem Analysis

“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop carries the idea of losing as it is simply stated in the first line. However, the lost
of friendship isn’t an immediate idea that the reader could grasp. Bishop builds the idea of losing a friend from
the first to the last stanza in this poem.
In the first stanza Bishop writes: “so many things seemed filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no
disaster.” This statement is pushing the fact that people tend to lose the things they take for granted quite easily.
She says that things are “filled with the intent to be lost” and therefore once they are lost, there are no surprises
to the person who’s lost the item. The first stanza doesn’t give many details about what is being lost and only
states that losing is something that happens everyday. In the second stanza, Bishop talks about “the fluster of
lost door keys, the hour badly spend.” These two examples are simple things that people tend to lose, but don’t
realize they’re losing everyday.
Next, she reiterates on the third stanza that after you lose something every day you start to “practice losing
farther, losing faster.” Bishop then ends the stanza by saying that losing: “places, and names, and where it was
you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.” Bishop talks about losing a name, such a simple a thing,
we could never think of as being “lost” and says that it doesn’t bring disaster. The last line of how: “None of
these will bring disaster,” makes sense in the third stanza because forgetting a name usually won’t bring
disaster.
In the fourth stanza, she says “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.” Unlike the second stanza where the last line of “The art of
losing isn’t hard to master” would be logical, the repeated line in the fourth stanza is confusing and causes the
reader to think about what Bishop describes as being lost. The last line in the fourth stanza is unusual because
people don’t usually lose “three houses” or such important things as a house aren’t meant to be lost easily. But
by saying “the art of losing isn’t hard to master,” Bishop writes it like it’s also something you could lose
everyday like “door keys” as she explained in the earlier second stanza.
The fifth stanza is also repeating what was earlier stated in the third stanza but says instead: “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.”
Usually, you can’t lose two cities and if two cities were lost, it would definitely be described as a disaster.
However, Bishop contradicts this assumption by saying that it didn’t cause a disaster. This makes the reader
think further into why Bishop is describing this disastrous situation as being a common everyday thing that
could happen. Also, the fact that Bishop writes that losing two cities, two rivers, and a continent doesn’t cause a
disaster shows that she is denying the fact that these cities, rivers, and continents weren’t important to her even
though they were.
In the last stanza, it is understood that Bishop it talking about the loss of a friend because she says: “Even
losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan’t have lied.” Obviously Bishop is ending this poem as if it
was a letter talking to someone and in the end says “though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.” Bishop
makes it clear that she’s losing a friend because when she describes losing door keys, names, and houses in the
previous stanzas, she’s picking examples that you encounter everyday. These things are also something you’d
expect to be there everyday as people would expect of a friend. The fact that Bishop tells the reader to “Write
it!” is showing the fact that Bishop has realized that she has lost something and is naming the loss itself. She
realizes that this one “loss” is less serious than losing two cities or a continent but in itself is the loss that causes
a disaster. Like in most cases of losing a friend, people don’t realize that they’ve lost them until they’re gone
and it is then that they realize it is a disaster.
Throughout the poem, Elizabeth Bishop puts pauses in her lines to change the pace at which the reader would
read the poem. During the first stanza, Bishop writes the line “so many things seem filled with the intent,” she
pauses and then writes “to be lost.” Doing this, Bishop emphasizes on to be loss but leaves the reader
wondering what the “intent” is before they read “to be lost.” This tells the reader that the things Bishop later
writes about being lost may not have been things she intended to lose because in these first lines, Bishop adds a
pause to show hesitation before she writes the intent to be “to be lost.”
Bishop also adds pauses in the fourth stanza when she’s describing various items that she’s lost. She says she
lost her mother’s watch and “my last, or” she pauses and then writes “next-to-last, of three loved houses went.”
Adding these pauses, Bishop shows hesitation or the fact that the author is struggling to remember what had
actually happened in the poem. This helps the audience understand that the poem, written as a letter, is hard for
this author to write because of the frequent breaks in the lines. The reader can think that the author is either
struggling to remember or is trying not to write the letter in such a way to show the whole truth. The author is
denying the fact that she’s lost something from the first five stanzas and only comes to admit in the last stanza,
that losing the subject, was the hardest thing for her to lose.

Art Analysis
In this artistic representation of the poem I drew a bus with various things falling out of the trunk. I drew houses
falling out because in the poem, the line says “—and look! Three houses went.” I also drew names falling out
and places falling out. For example I drew the Eiffel Tower to represent the city of Paris falling out on the
ground. I wanted all of these items to tall out of a truck to show how they can be easily lost, not realistically, but
as described in the poem by Bishop. For all the items behind the truck, they are all items taken from the line of
the poem. There are cities, keys, and continents. I made the truck drive over the continent to show that it was
easy to lose. Lastly, my picture has no color because I feel like the poem isn’t happy spirited and I fell like the
author is looking back when writing this poem. In retrospect she realizes that she’s loss the dearest thing to her
heart, a friend. The black and white should look like a black and white photograph.

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.

By Elizabeth Bishop