Bibliofreakblog

FreeVerse: One Art

There’s this episode of Futurama where Zoidberg gets some money and goes into an art gallery and says, “I would like one art, please” and so whenever we’re talking and art comes up, my husband and our friends say “one art, please”.  Because, you know, we’re millenials.  That’s what we do.  We quote things.  To such an extent that sometimes, in fact, I think that my whole generation is autistic.

So, the thing is that the title of this poem reminds me of that, rather than the other way around.  Which is too bad, because it’s a villanelle, which is, in my opinion, a much underrated and underused poetic form.

“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with 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 lsing 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.