one art poem essay

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One Art Summary & Analysis by Elizabeth Bishop

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

“One Art” was written by the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. The poem is a villanelle , a traditional form that involves a fixed number of lines and stanzas and an intricate pattern of repetition and rhyme. Through this form, the poem explores loss as an inevitable part of life. The speaker considers what it means to experience loss over and over again, and whether it is truly possible to “master” the experience of loss and grief. “One Art” was included in Bishop’s final collection of poetry, Geography III , which was published in 1976.

• Read the full text of “One Art”

The Full Text of “One Art”

“one art” summary, “one art” themes.

The Inevitability and Pain of Loss

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “one art”.

The art of ... hard to master;

so many things ... ... is no disaster.

Lose something every ... ... hard to master.

Then practice losing ... ... will bring disaster.

Lines 10-12

I lost my ... ... hard to master.

Lines 13-15

I lost two ... ... wasn’t a disaster.

Lines 16-17

—Even losing you ... ... shan’t have lied.

Lines 17-19

It’s evident ... ...  it!) like disaster.

“One Art” Symbols

• Line 10: “I lost my mother’s watch.”

“One Art” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Line 1: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master;”
• Line 6: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”
• Line 12: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.”
• Line 18: “the art of losing’s not too hard to master”
• Line 3: “to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
• Line 9: “to travel. None of these will bring disaster.”
• Line 15: “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.”
• Lines 18-19: “the art of losing’s not too hard to master / though it may look like ( / Write /  it!) like disaster.”
• Line 1: “losing”
• Line 3: “lost,” “ loss”
• Line 4: “Lose”
• Line 5: “lost”
• Line 6: “losing”
• Line 7: “losing,” “losing”
• Line 10: “lost”
• Line 11: “loved”
• Line 12: “losing”
• Line 13: “lost,” “lovely”
• Line 16: “losing”
• Line 17: “love”
• Line 18: “losing’s”

End-Stopped Line

• Line 1: “master;”
• Line 3: “disaster.”
• Line 5: “spent.”
• Line 6: “master.”
• Line 7: “faster:”
• Line 9: “disaster.”
• Line 11: “went.”
• Line 12: “master.”
• Line 13: “vaster,”
• Line 14: “continent.”
• Line 15: “disaster.”
• Line 19: “disaster.”
• Lines 2-3: “intent / to”
• Lines 4-5: “fluster / of”
• Lines 8-9: “meant / to”
• Lines 10-11: “or / next-to-last”
• Lines 16-17: “gesture / I”
• Lines 17-18: “evident / the”
• Lines 18-19: “master / though”
• Line 5: “lost door keys, the hour badly spent.”
• Line 7: “losing farther, losing faster:”
• Line 14: “some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.”
• Lines 16-17: “(the joking voice, a gesture / I love)”

Alliteration

• Line 1: “losing,” “master”
• Line 2: “many”
• Line 3: “lost,” “loss”
• Line 7: “losing,” “farther,” “losing,” “faster”
• Line 10: “lost,” “watch,” “look,” “last”
• Line 11: “last,” “loved,” “went.”
• Line 14: “realms,” “rivers”
• Line 16: “losing,” “joking,” “gesture”
• Line 17: “love,” “lied”
• Line 19: “look,” “like,” “like”
• Line 1: “art,” “losing,” “isn’t,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
• Line 2: “so,” “many,” “seem,” “filled,” “intent”
• Line 3: “lost,” “loss,” “disaster.”
• Line 4: “Lose,” “something,” “day,” “Accept,” “fluster”
• Line 5: “lost,” “door,” “badly,” “spent”
• Line 6: “art,” “losing,” “isn’t,” “hard,” “master”
• Line 7: “practice,” “losing,” “farther,” “losing,” “faster”
• Line 8: “places”
• Line 9: “to,” “travel,” “will,” “disaster.”
• Line 10: “lost,” “my,” “mother’s,” “look,” “last”
• Line 11: “last,” “loved,” “went”
• Line 12: “art,” “losing,” “isn’t,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
• Line 13: “lost,” “two,” “cities,” “lovely,” “vaster”
• Line 14: “realms,” “owned,” “two,” “continent”
• Line 15: “it,” “wasn’t,” “disaster.”
• Line 16: “losing,” “joking,” “ gesture”
• Line 17: “love,” “lied,” “It’s,” “evident”
• Line 18: “art,” “losing’s,” “not,” “too,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
• Line 19: “it,” “look,” “like,” “Write,” “it,” “like,” “disaster.”
• Line 1: “art,” “hard,” “master”
• Line 2: “things,” “filled,” “with,” “intent”
• Line 3: “disaster”
• Line 7: “practice,” “faster”
• Line 8: “places,” “names”
• Line 10: “lost,” “watch,” “last, or”
• Line 11: “last”
• Line 12: “art,” “hard,” “master.”
• Line 13: “cities,” “vaster,”
• Line 14: “rivers,” “continent”
• Line 15: “miss ,” “it,” “disaster.”
• Line 18: “art,” “losing’s,” “too,” “hard,” “to,” “master”
• Line 19: “like,” “Write,” “like,” “disaster.”

“One Art” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• (Location in poem: Line 1: “master;”; Line 6: “master.”; Line 12: “master.”; Line 18: “master”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “One Art”

Rhyme scheme, “one art” speaker, “one art” setting, literary and historical context of “one art”, more “one art” resources, external resources.

The Bishop Archives at Vassar College — Elizabeth Bishop attended Vassar College and her papers are now stored in Vassar’s Special Collections. Visit the Vassar Archives & Special Collections website to learn more about Bishop’s papers stored at the library. 

Audio of “One Art” in Reaching for the Moon — A 2013 Brazilian film, Reaching for the Moon, explores Bishop’s life in Brazil and her relationship with the architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Although the movie misinterprets the poem “One Art” as about Bishop’s relationship with Soares—the poem was, in fact, about Bishop’s last partner, Alice Methfessel—the movie includes a recitation of the poem by the actress Miranda Otto, who played Bishop. In the scene, Bishop reads the poem to her friend Robert Lowell.

Biography of Elizabeth Bishop — Learn more about the poet's life and work.

The Drafts of “One Art” — Read more about Bishop’s writing process and how “One Art” changed over the course of 17 drafts in this essay at Modern American Poetry.

"Elizabeth Bishop's Art of Losing" — Read this article from The New Yorker to learn more about Bishop’s life, including the circumstances that gave rise to the poem “One Art.”

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By Elizabeth Bishop

‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop reveals the extent to which people will deny the possibility of grief as a way of coping with inevitable loss, comparing it to an art form that can be easily mastered.

Elizabeth Bishop

Nationality: American

She won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for her collection Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring.

Key Poem Information

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Central Message: Loss is an immutable fact of life that we try to distance or numb ourselves to.

Themes: Disappointment , Love , Relationships

Speaker: An individual well acquainted with loss.

Emotions Evoked: Grief , Missing Someone , Pain

Poetic Form: Villanelle

Time Period: 20th Century

Elizabeth Bishop's poem communicates via its tone, diction, and imagery the subtle difficulties that come with trying to cope with ceaseless loss.

‘One Art’ is a famous villanelle by American poet Elizabeth Bishop about coping with the inevitability of loss. The form’s cyclical repetitions accentuate the mounting tension weighing on the speaker as they attempt to anesthetize themselves from all grief or longing. To this end, they approach it as an art form that must be mastered, feigning pride and nonchalance over their talent for losing. The poem’s parenthetical asides serve as an inner voice that urges them to maintain a safe distance from the truth: that each new, unavoidable loss is as burdensome as the last.

Before reading the poem, take note of the following points to enhance your understanding

• Like many of Bishop's poems , there's strong evidence that it's based at least in part on her own life. At eight months old, she lost her father. She later lost her mother when she succumbed to mental illness. One of her lovers died by suicide. The many losses experienced by the poem's speaker are thus paralleled by the ones suffered by its author.
• Irony is an important element in the poem. Despite the speaker's insistent and repeated claims that losing isn't hard to overcome or endure, their belief that all forms of loss are inconsequential is hyperbolic and ironic . According to them, nothing lost is ever a disaster, a maxim disproved by their contemplation in the final stanza of losing someone they love. This irony reveals the tension that hides just beneath the surface of the speaker's nonchalance.

Explore One Art

• 2 Literary Devices
• 4 Detailed Analysis

‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop illustrates the desperate denial of grief and pain that follows a devastating loss.

‘One Art’ begins with the speaker claiming that mastery of loss is an easy thing to acquire, as life is filled with things destined to be lost. They interpret this as proof that such separations are “no disaster.” We are advised to try losing something each day, be they door keys or a wasted hour. One should then accelerate their practice: lose places, names, and future travel plans, as no catastrophe will follow.

The speaker confesses their laundry list of losses: there was their “mother’s watch,” “three loved houses,” as well as entire cities and continents. Yet all of these are held up as being as inconsequential to the last. They were missed but the speaker reiterates it led to no disaster. They then address an unknown individual, someone dear, whom they have either lost or fear losing. Unable to lie, the speaker reverts to their consoling refrain that one can amass loss without tragedy .

The Poem Analysis Take

Expert Insights by Steven Ward

B.A. Honors in English Literature

' One Art ' is, no doubt, one of Bishop's most famous and often quoted poems, unfolding as a subtly poignant reckoning with loss that reveals one person's attempt to both numb and adapt to the grieved longing that follows. Thanks to the repetitions inherent to the villanelle form, the words of comfort repeated throughout, "The art of losing isn’t hard to master," are spoken both as a means of convincing themselves as well as the reader. Their yearning for what's been lost transformed into a desperate desire to no longer feel the sting or weight of those piled-up losses. Bishop's terse diction and insistent tone only compound the bittersweetness of the poem's irony, while her parenthetical asides offer a glimpse into the mind beneath those cold rationalizations, exposing the heartbreakingly human struggle of accepting the inevitability of such loss.

Literary Devices

‘One Art’ contains examples of the following literary devices:

• Metaphor : “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” (1) is a line that repeats throughout the poem, appearing as an extended metaphor that compares individual loss to an art form or creative skill. Bishop’s speaker attains mastery of it by embracing it as opposed to fighting or grieving when something is lost. In doing so, they hope to absolve themselves of the pain.
• Symbolism : In the line, “I lost my mother’s watch” (10), the speaker references the loss of an item that once belonged to their mother. But it might also be interpreted as the loss of her as a parent and caretaker — implying that her mother can no longer watch over her. In this way, the watch symbolizes a loss of time with the ones we love.
• Visual Imagery : Bishop uses imagery to depict the immensity of some of the things the speaker has lost, including “two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, / some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent” (13-14). The sweeping beauty of these locales contradicts their forced lack of concern or sadness for their memory.

‘One Art’ revolves around the speaker’s attempts to numb themselves to an immutable fact of life: all things end, nothing is truly eternal. No one knows this better than the speaker (or Bishop for that matter) as the list of things they’ve lost seems only to grow. Despite their attempts to convince the reader and themselves, it is clear that they’re struggling to accept the reality that most of what we take for granted or cherish is fleeting.

With each new loss, the tension grows as the speaker’s tone of casual indifference persists. The repeated mantra that “loss is no disaster” starts to resemble less a confidently given statement of fact and more a desperately upheld belief. One clung to as an alternative to acknowledging a secret fear, which is uncovered in the final stanza when Bishop alters the form of the villanelle to accommodate a glimpse behind the speaker’s artfully crafted facade.

Contemplating the loss of someone they love — “Even losing you” — is too much to consider, and their inner voice — “(Write it!)” — pushes them to cope with this future loss in the same manner they’ve approached previous ones. However, it’s now evident to the reader that doing so is far more difficult a task than the speaker is letting on.

Detailed Analysis

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.

In the first stanza, Bishop sets out her intentions. She seems to affirm that loss is part of the human condition: we lose both significant and insignificant things constantly and should thus accept this as a natural part of life, and even master this practice to remove any sensation of disaster we may take from it. These two points will be repeated throughout ‘One Art’ to emphasize them.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

In the second stanza, she invites the reader in by naming two extremely common things to lose: keys and time. The enjambment between the first and second lines causes us to pause and contemplate how ridiculous is this ‘fluster’ that occurs when we lose our keys. She eases us slowly into her idea: the universality of these two occurrences allows us to relate and thus agree that indeed, this is not too hard to master and is certainly not a disaster.

Stanza Three

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

The emotional tension begins to subtly build in the third stanza as Bishop incites us to further our practice, broadening the scope of our loss. Here, the things we lose are more related to thought and memory: people, places, and plans that, with time, naturally escape our heads and no longer form part of our lives. This is harder for the reader to accept and the familiar affirmation that this will not bring disaster becomes less comforting. House keys and an hour here and there seem commonplace and natural and to consciously lose these things to aid our mastering of losing does not seem too difficult. Places, names, and plans require a larger effort and a degree of emotional distancing that the second stanza did not call for.

Stanza Four

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or (…) The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

There is a subtle change from the third to the fourth stanza, a perfect split in keeping with the poem’s rigid structure. Almost imperceptibly, the speaker switches from addressing the reader to drawing on her own experience. It is here that Bishop begins to undermine her meticulous structural details and carefully impassive tone. “I lost my mother’s watch”, she states an admission that seems to come from nowhere. However, the casual tone is disappearing; the inexplicable mention of this personal aspect of the speaker’s life has upped the emotional stakes.

As the stanza continues, it becomes clear that this is a further attempt to demonstrate the universality of loss. The picture becomes bigger and the distance larger. The exclamation: “And look!” betrays yet more emotion, despite its apparent offhand tone. Now Bishop tells us to look at our losses on a bigger scale: the houses we lived in – not so disastrous except for the use of the word “loved” here. Indeed, these were just places we lived in, but we nonetheless also valued them.

Stanza Five

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, (…) I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

The first-person speaker continues in the fifth stanza as the poet attempts to further distance herself from loss. She is stepping further and further back and the picture she is painting reaches a higher geographical level: to cities and continents. Nevertheless, this is undermined by a wistful tone: the cities she lost were “lovely ones” and, although she maintains that their loss was not a disaster, she does admit that she misses them. Faced with this unusual outlook, the reader is forced to ask at this point: if the loss of a continent is no disaster, what would thus constitute one?

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture (…) though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

The fifth stanza leads us to a brief look at the structure of ‘One Art’ . The villanelle allows for a break in its pattern of tercets and tight rhyme , giving away to one quatrain with a repeated rhyme. Just as the structure cracks, so does the poetic voice . The final stanza opens with a dash, which could perhaps be seen as an attempt at a casual tone but serves to slow the poem down here, allowing for yet more emotion to permeate the final words. The reader is forced to consider this “you”, and we see how the poem has taken a journey: starting with the little objects, going through thought and memory, to houses, places, and continents forming one huge picture until at the end, zooming in on and pinpointing this “you”. A “you” with, as we infer from the parentheses, a personality , a memorable tone of voice, and gestures. A person lost; an irreplaceable entity.

Here, however, instead of simply demonstrating the pain of losing this person, what Bishop is doing is showing us how we can try to deal with this. Through the practice of loss: recognizing the little things we lose every day and looking at the bigger picture of life and all the things we lose that are, objectively, not disastrous, we can help ourselves to get through the pain of losing the most significant things. In ‘One Art’ , the poet allows us to take notice of the natural process of loss that permeates our life on an everyday basis, and in this way prevent us from losing ourselves in the process.

If we read only the first and last stanzas of ‘One Art’ we would perhaps find it unfeeling and indifferent. Nevertheless, the poem as a whole reads more like a sympathetic list of advice. Just as the act of losing is a natural part of life, so are the feelings of regret and sadness that accompany it, reflected in the hints of emotion carried by the poetic voice. Just as we find we can relate to losing our keys and our former houses, as we find empathy in the description of the loss of a loved one. This idea has its ultimate echo in the parenthesis in the final line: “ Write it!” Bishop tells us, demonstrating how, by writing her own experience of loss, she finds catharsis and an opportunity to share this experience and thus perhaps help others to avoid disaster.

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Gilmour, Lara. "One Art by Elizabeth Bishop". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/elizabeth-bishop/one-art/ . Accessed 18 August 2024.

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One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

“One Art” is written by one of the pioneer American poets, Elizabeth Bishop. It was first published in the magazine, The New Yorker in 1976, and later included in Bishop’s final collection, Geography III (1976). This poem is considered one of the most brilliant villanelles ever written in the English language. According to critics, it is an autobiographical expression of Bishop. Bishop wrote this poem during the time she was separated from her partner, Alice Methfessel, four years before her death.

Bishop, in a highly descriptive manner, presents microscopic details of all the things she lost, making it a poem about loss. The poetic voice claims to lose is like “art” that can be practiced or won over, something that can be dazzlingly “mastered,” but that is exactly where the irony of the poem lies. The bold claims she makes as she professes the art of loss are only a meek attempt to understand and internalize her own losses and how to deal with them.

• Read the full poem “One Art” below:

“One Art” is often referred to as Bishop’s autobiographical poem and one of her most famous works. Through this poem, she takes readers on a journey of the losses that she has to endure throughout her life. The poem starts with a bold exclamation that losing is an art that is not hard to master. In fact, it is the intention of certain things to be lost and that is no disaster. Losing is an everyday act, similar to losing a key or wasting some hours. It is not a thing to fret over. One should practice losing and practice it as much as one can. It is not just limited to external physical or abstract objects but losses are also very intrinsic in nature.

One can certainly forget names, places, and memories, and this too is not a disaster. As the poem moves forward, the first-person voice is introduced. This poetic voice claims that she has lost her mother’s watch and three houses until now. She goes on to talk about losing ginormous things like cities, realms, rivers, and even a continent. This allegorical description of the losses paints a poignant picture of her sufferings. The enormity with which she depicts her losses is almost hyperbolic. From this point onwards as the poem builds up, there is but one loss that she speaks of, and it is the loss of this “you.” Yet ironically, she still claims that losses are not hard to master and neither are they catastrophic.

Structure & Form

Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” is a villanelle, a fixed verse form with origins in French baroque. A Villanelle has nineteen lines made up of five tercets (three-line stanzas) and concluded by a quatrain (four-line stanza). There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes in this form. Bishop does not closely adhere to the fixed villanelle form. She improvises the refrains but keeps the tercet-quatrain structure intact. In the first three tercets, she uses the third-person, objective point of view. The rest follows the semi-personal, first-person perspective.

Rhyme Scheme

The rhyme pattern employed in “One Art” is ABA, making the rhyme in the first and third lines repeat in an alternate pattern in every stanza. Bishop does not employ fixed rhymes, rather she uses several half-rhymes or slant rhymes. For instance, the words “or” and “master” rhyme imperfectly in the fourth tercet. Besides, there is a mosaic rhyme between “last, or” and “master.”

Meter & Scansion

“One Art” uses iambic pentameter, a metric form denoting five iambs in a poetic line. Ten syllables made up of five pairs of repeating unstressed (short) and stressed (long) syllables comprise this metrical scheme. The scansion of the poem gives a clear understanding of how this meter is used.

The art / of lo /-sing is /-n’t hard / to mas /-ter; so ma /-ny things / seem filled / with the / in- tent to be / lost that / their loss / is no / di- sas /-ter. – Lose some /-thing eve /-ry day ./ Ac- cept / the flus /-ter of lost / door keys ,/ the hour / bad -ly/ spent . The art / of lo /-sing is /-n’t hard / to mas /-ter. – Then prac /-tice lo /-sing far /-ther, lo /-sing fas /-ter: pla -ces,/ and names ,/ and where / it was / you meant to tra /-vel. None / of these / will bring / di- sas /-ter. – I lost / my mo /-ther’s watch ./ And look !/ my last ,/ or next /-to- last ,/ of three / loved hou /-ses went . The art / of lo /-sing is /-n’t hard / to mas /-ter. – I lost / two ci /-ties, love /-ly ones ./ And, vas /-ter, some realms / I owned ,/ two ri /-vers, a / con- ti /-nent. I miss / them, but / it was /-n’t a / di- sas /-ter. – — E -ven/ lo -sing/ you (the/ jo -king/ voice , a/ ges -ture I love )/ I shan’t / have lied ./ It’s e /-vi- dent the art / of lo /-sing’s not / too hard / to mas /-ter though it / may look / like ( Write / it!) like / di- sas /-ter.

The poem begins with an eleven-syllable line, thus having a feminine ending (a line ending with an unstressed syllable). It is followed by a perfect decasyllabic line with the unstressed-stressed, iambic rhythm. The lines ending with the syllable “-ter” are feminine, creating an unrestricted flow to the next line. Besides, some occasional use of trochees marks the shifts in the speaker’s chain of thoughts, such as in the ending of line 5 and the opening of the last quatrain (line 16).

Literary Devices & Figurative Language

Symbolism is a poetic technique in which marks, signs, or words are used to represent abstract ideas, qualities, or associations. The meaning of symbolic words differs from their actual literal meaning. There are a few notable symbols in “One Art”:

• The lost “mother’s watch” represents the difficult relationship that Bishop had with her mother whom she lost at a young age, because of her being institutionalized and then her death.
• The loss of “names” and “places” also represents a sense of isolation and a loss of identity she might have felt.
• Lastly, the loss of “three loved houses” represents her childhood that was spent moving from one place to another leading her to have felt uprooted every time. The use of symbolism features the psychologically complex mind of Bishop.

The predominant irony that is followed throughout “One Art” is that the speaker, in a very didactic and instructive tone, is trying to tell readers that loss is like an “art” and that it can be “mastered” through practice. But as the poem progresses, it turns out that it is to her own self that she is trying to explain the fact as she tries to reassure herself that loss is no “disaster” after all. The poem then becomes a type of lesson imparted by a master or an artist, who has most evidently witnessed a lot of losses throughout her life and has abundant experience. But as the poem breaks in the parathesis—( Write it!)—the readers are introduced to the ironic self of the speaker that preaches the inevitability of losses and has an indifference towards them, but still struggles to accept their pervasiveness.

The speaker in “One Art” portrays all her losses to be of equal magnitude and tries to create an indifference towards each one of them. She simplifies life, but ironically life can never be that simple, a fact remains in the undertone of the poem as she enlists all the things that she has lost. Such complex and ambiguous emotions are included through a tightly restrained form, suggesting irony to be the core of the poem.

Imagery is the use of figurative or descriptive language to create a picture or image in readers’ minds. Stanza three makes use of a number of images, like “cities,” “realms,” “rivers,” and “continents.” These images help readers to imagine something enormous, which is a representation of all that she has lost. The extent of her loss can only be compared to the images present in the poem.

Alliteration & Assonance

Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of closely placed words. It occurs in “ m aster;/ so m any,” “ f arther, losing f aster,” “ m y m other’s,” “ l ook! my l ast,” etc. Assonance is the repetition of the vowel sounds in neighboring words, such as in “los i ng i sn’t,” “l o st my mother’s w a tch,” etc. These devices add to the momentum of the poem. It seems to bring to the surface that there is just so much that the speaker has lost that she is exasperated, but the restraining structure keeps her from falling apart.

A metaphor is a poetic device in which a word or phrase may denote one object or an idea when taken literally but is used to denote something else, suggesting an association or comparison. The predominant metaphor that is present throughout the poem is an analogy formed between losing as a form of “art.” This suggests that coping with loss becomes an emotional skill that can be mastered through practice. Something that is only suffused to be felt is commodified into a skill. This makes “One Art” a metaphoric verse.

Refrains are lines that are repeated several times in a poem. There are two refrains in “One Art,” and one of them is entirely repeated: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” Bishop is inconsistent about the second refrain, and instead of using it in exact words, she only repeats the words “disaster” at the end of each refrain. The last stanza includes both the refrains.

The repetition of these lines is important. They represent the obsession of the speaker with defeating loss, mastering it, and not feeling rejected. She tries to make sense of the absence that she felt through a retrospective repletion. It acts as intrusive thought occurring when following a course of action. The refrain and rhymes also provide a kind of speed and force to the poem, which in turn has a rather large impact on readers.

The first line of the third tercet contains a repetition of the word “losing,” denoting a sense of urgency or rush. This also hints at the extent of human loss. There is an ironic repetition of the word “last” in the fourth tercet. Furthermore, in the next tercet, Bishop repeats “two” to denote the number of “cities” and “rivers” she lost touch with.

Line-by-Line Analysis & Explanation

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.

The first line or the first refrain remains unchanged and is repeated throughout “One Art.” It ends with a semicolon, indicating a kind of pause. This was a deliberate choice made by the poet which instills a sense of confidence in the tone, leaving no room for uncertainties. The claim that is being made here is that losing is an art that is not difficult to “master.” The second line is accompanied by an enjambment at the word “intent,” which introduces a jerk in the initial confidence of the poetic persona. This suggests that it is the “intent” of certain things to be lost. It is as if they want to be lost (a use of personification), yet it is no “disaster.” The second refrain ends with the word “disaster” each time. Bishop took certain liberties in changing the initial wording of this refrain.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. 

The first line of the second stanza sounds like a command. It states that losing something is an everyday activity. The speaker tells readers to practice it through her tone. The brevity and abruptness of the sentence suggest that she has no patience in clarifying the details. Those who have already experienced the disconcert of losing door keys or an hour spent unproductively can relate to her.

The two examples exhibited are essentially different: the “key” is a physical object and the wasted “hour” is an abstract one. But the suggestion remains that they are both small and unimportant things hence losing them is not so substantial. In the last line, she restates that the art of losing should not be too 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. 

The third stanza starts with yet another command. The speaker makes an attempt to inform readers about the specifics of this art and how it is to be done: “losing farther” and “losing faster.” The repetition of “losing” implies a sense of rush that the poem takes forth. This suggests a sense of urgency as the speaker further enlists her losses. The loss of keys or an hour is inconsiderable compared to the things mentioned here.

From line eight onwards, the speaker illustrates the losses that affect the mind. These are not tangible. She talks about losing “names” and “places,” meaning the loss of memories. In the ninth line, she reassures readers that even losing such things as those memories and consequently the emotions will not “bring disaster.” It will not be such a grand matter.

Lines 10-12

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. 

The first line of this tercet indicates a sudden shift to the first-person, personal voice from the third-person perspective. Up until now, the poetic voice seems to be an instructive one, making commands and giving instructions, but the shift in the point of view denotes that the poet is now addressing herself rather than the readers. She uses her own voice to hint at her own losses, like losing her “mother’s watch” a symbol of a loose mother-daughter relationship. Then she makes an exclamation, “And look!”, in an attempt to attract readers’ attention to her losing “three loved houses.” Yet again after detailing these threads of losses, she uses the first refrain that the art of losing is not that hard to learn. The objectivity the poetic persona tries to maintain hitherto sounds somewhat emotional.

Lines 13-15 

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.

The fifth tercet begins with a statement about the immensity of the things that she has lost. It is greater and far more complicated than losing her “mother’s watch” or the “houses.” She has lost two “cities” that that too “lovely” ones. There is a sense of warning when she says “And, vaster,” because her losses just do not end here. They go beyond her owned realms, rivers, and even a continent. Of course, it is practically impossible to lose such things so such losses represent an emotional loss perhaps, one that is more indicative of the overall sentiment. In fact, the enormous nature of the losses makes it seem almost hyperbolic.

The last lines suggest a split in the chain of thoughts, a perfect ricocheting between indifference and sadness. She expresses her grief when she says “I miss them,” but almost immediately the comma divides the sentence creating a split in her thoughts as she claims her second refrain again, “but it wasn’t a disaster.” One half of her mind wants to grieve while the other half wants to deny it.

Lines 16-19

—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.

The very first line of the last quatrain starts with emdash, which alludes to a pause that the speaker is taking before speaking further. After the first five tercets, there is a build-up in the intensity of the losses she had to chew. The emdash allows her a breather before she comes to a kind of certainty about what she has to say. The final loss that she lists is this “you” to whom she addresses with a parenthesis. She declares what she misses the most about this person are their “joking voice” and their “gestures.” The parenthesis allows her to retrospect. She reminisces on this important and the only addressee of “One Art.”

In the next line, she goes on to reaffirm her initial claim about how easy it is to lose and that fact is not a lie. It is most “evident.” The poem ends on the note of a repetition of both the refrains; first the declaration that a loss is not that hard to “master” and then a reassurance that a loss is not a “disaster.” However, the other parenthesis before she finally ends the poem creates a chasm in the final line. She, with a commanding tone, exclaims to herself, “ Write it!”, as if she is urging herself to finish the sentence. This acts as a reference to her conflict and the denial of her own feelings. In fact, it denotes that the only person she was instructing throughout the poem was herself all along.

Loss and Survival

Loss as a theme of “One Art” is the one that is stated most explicitly throughout. It also becomes the central idea of the poem. This piece brings out the pervasive nature of loss, and that it is implicit, almost always inevitable. Bishop elucidates this theme with the various illustrations of losses that occur in people’s lives in general along with the illustrations from her personal life. She claims to lose to be an “art” that can be mastered. The apparent strategy is to actually practice losing more and more to be good at it.

As readers progress towards the end of the poem, what comes to light is that the only way in which losses can be half defeated is through their acknowledgment and acceptance. This is illustrated when Bishop forces a kind of acceptance of her losses when she exclaims—( Write it!)—as if she finally believes that she has been in denial. She is finally coming to terms with it. In this way, the art of losing implicitly becomes the art of survival.

Learn and Practice

There is a reinforcement of the act of practicing and learning in “One Art.” Bishop’s emphasis on the fact that losing is an “art” that can be mastered makes it something that can be learned through deliberate practice. Learning to lose is somewhat a positive take in the otherwise remorseful poem. The instructive voice in the first half of the poem is like that of an expert imparting a lesson to their pupils. As the narrative voice shifts from the third person to the first, readers witness the didactic voice of the poet was after all directed towards her own self. This proves to be an objective approach that the poet applies to her situation in order to make sense of it. Thus, the intricate act of teaching and learning is felt almost as strongly as the act of losing, making learning an important theme and aspect of the poem.

Latent Sadness, Retrospection, and Nostalgia

Through “One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop looks at her life in a retrospective manner. She writes of the many losses that she had to endure in her lifetime. She enlists them within a tautly structured framework of a villanelle so as to not allow her emotions to influence her judgment. Thus, she tries to make sense of them although this objective approach only acts as a veneer to her real emotions. In the ending, she breaks the strong frame with emdash and parentheses revealing all that she has denied admitting. Her sadness, although latent, finds its way back to her through a nostalgic reminiscence of her past:

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.

Tone & Mood

What is most apparent about “One Art” is that it presents two kinds of tones: an explicit and an implicit undertone. Both of these tones prove impactful for the readers to understand the psychologically complex idea of loss. The seemingly indifferent or casual tone hides the actual chaos that the speaker tries to deny. BIshop uses a strict poetic form to structure her thoughts in order to check her own emotions, making them not spill out and create a lachrymose mess. However, the minute inevitable nuances give away her real intentions. Her emotions bring to the surface the chaotic and complex nature of her mind.

“One Art” chooses its primary subject matter of “loss.” She enlists all that she has lost and connects with the reader through subjective and objective representations of the losses. The schemes applied by Bishop set a kind of happy-go-lucky mood in the poem. She has a steadfast attachment to the idea of winning over her losses, but their acknowledgment and acceptance are rather difficult. This evokes a pitiful and sad mood in readers. Overall, the mood of the poem remains regretful until the end.

Historical Context

“One Art” acts as an elegy to all the losses that Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) witnessed throughout her life. She first lost her father when she was not even a year old and then saw her mother grieve until she was clinically insane and had to be institutionalized. Bishop eventually ended up losing her mother too in her early twenties. She kept relocating as a child and could not call any particular place her home for too long a time.

Bishop had an exceptional love for traveling and through a fellowship, she received from Bryn Mawr College in 1951, she moved to South America on a boat. She was to finally stop in Brazil for a stay of two weeks but she ended up staying fifteen years. There she met Lota de Macedo Soares and stayed with her until Soares committed suicide in 1967.

Bishop then moved back to Massachusetts, where she took up teaching at Harvard University. In 1971, she met Alice Methfessel, who helped and took care of her in her last years. Both of them traveled together. Their relationship was on its high for five years until Bishop’s behavior and alcoholism got in the way of their relationship. In the spring of 1975, Methfessel got married leaving Bishop alone. Bishop made a will for her inheritance in the name of Methfessel.

Bishop’s life was weighed down by losses and “One Art” is an embodiment of the fact, depicting her life in an autobiographical manner. It took her just two weeks to compose this poem after writing seventeen drafts. The poem was first published in The New Yorker on 26 April 1976. Later the same year, it was included in her poetry collection, Geography III , one of her most positively critiqued works. For this collection, Bishop received the Neustadt International Prize making her the first American and the first woman to receive this accolade. She also won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977.

Questions and Answers

In “One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop portrays the universality of loss, making it both perpetual and pervasive. This occurrence is common to all—an experience familiar to both the poet and the audience. The poet not only objectively tries to accept and acknowledge her losses but also educates readers of its inevitability. She claims that there is but one art that anyone must practice and it is to learn to lose. The title of the poem becomes relevant as she makes it abundantly clear that the only important lesson that one should inculcate is the art of losing, establishing its supremacy over everything, making it one art. Another reason for stating the relevance of the title is in the framework of the poem itself. There is a momentum that is built throughout adding to the intensity and importance of the losses that Bishop enlists. After all the survivable losses that she mentions including the loss of the hyperbolic “realms” and “continents” there is but one loss that cracks her core. It is the loss of the only addressee of the poem, this “you.” When everything is lost there is only one that stands out, it is that one loss, under the cover of the structure, that is hard to accept. Hence, again rendering the title relevant.

“One Art” is an autobiographical account of the losses poet Elizabeth Bishop had to suffer throughout her life. As she enlists her losses, they also increase in intensity and importance, but the restrictive fixed form of a villanelle helps her in keeping her own emotions from spilling. This objective approach used by Bishop in “One Art” acts as a medium that helps her make sense of her life after all that had been lost with the purpose of not falling into the emotional trap. In the end, she clearly forces herself to move past this “you.” So, the logical approach and the objectivity in her understanding of loss as an “art” even when losing the addressee, which was almost like a “disaster,” help Bishop survive it. Thus, “One Art” becomes a medium through which she not only meditates on her losses but also learns to accept them.

The central message of “One Art” is to educate the readers on the fact that life is essentially about losing and moving on. Like any art, a loss can be “mastered.” Elizabeth Bishop, through her poetic persona, imparts this message in her autobiographical account of the losses that she had to suffer. She shows how one must practice losing and how one must lose more and more to be good at it. There is a reassuring message that whatever it is we lose, it is certainly no “disaster.” What also becomes an implicit message is not only mastering these losses but also accepting them. It is only towards the end of the poem that the speaker somewhat comes to terms with her losses. She has to force herself to accept the bitter reality. So, the central acknowledgment of the poem is not to simply master the art of losing but to survive it as well.

Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle “One Art” is essentially about losses and how pervasive and unpreventable they are. The poem is also much more than that as it talks about losing as an “art” that can be “mastered” through practice, incorporating a didactic feature to it. The very first line, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master,” is paradoxical that is carried through the narrative. On the one hand, Bishop believes that one should learn not to pay extra attention to the losses that occur in life, but on the other hand, she suggests readers practice losing. This intention creates a contradiction that is only consolidated through various personal accounts in the poem. “One Art” also takes readers through the autobiographical depiction of Bishop’s life and all that she lost with time, ranging from mere everyday objects like “keys” or “names and places” to more important things like her “mother’s watch” and “loved houses,” and then to vast, hyperbolic ideas like “cities,” “realms,” “rivers,” and even a “continent.” All of this culminates in the most important thing that she lost, her loved one addressed as “you.” Though it was hard to lose these things, they are after all not a “disaster.” This adds an air of regret to an ironic backdrop, leading readers to sympathize with Bishop.

“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop brings to light two essential ideas: the first one is that losing is an “art” and the second one is accepting losses objectively. The essential emphasis is on the act of losing as an “art,” which makes it a kind of skill that can be “mastered” with practice. Bishop seems to be bringing all her losses on one single plane. For her, losing everyday objects like “keys” is equivalent to losing the most valuable person in her life, the addressee of the poem, “you.” Bishop lost so much throughout her life that losing further was not any harder than the preceding ones. Hence, this commodification of loss as an act that can be learned is crucial with respect to the poem. Another important dimension that Bishop gives the poem is in contrast with the first idea: the act of acceptance. This is where readers can see her acting objectively. The art of losing then becomes the art of survival.

“One Art” is an autobiographical poem that Elizabeth Bishop wrote as she approached the end of her life. This poem is part of her last book of poetry, Geography III (1976). “One Art” is one of the last poems by Bishop and stands symbolic of the fact that it is an account of certain significant losses that she had to witness. It is written in a tightly structured poetic form called villanelle, which gives her a certain kind of aloofness helping her in understanding her own life.

Similar Poems about Loss

• “ Easter ” by Jill Alexander Essbaum — This poem is about a speaker who tries to cope with her past losses during Easter.
• “ Splendour in the Grass ” by William Wordsworth — This philosophical poem part of Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode imparts the lesson of moving on with the learnings from one’s past.
• “ Love in a Life ” by Robert Browning — In this poem, a speaker tries to find the presence of his beloved in their room.
• “ I wish I could remember that first day ” by Christina Rossetti — This nostalgic poem is about one speaker’s regrets about her past choices.

Useful Resources

• Watch Reaching for the Moon (2013) — This inspirational Brazilian movie is based on Elizabeth Bishop’s relationship with Lota de Macedo Soares.
• Check Out The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 — This essential collection of Bishop’s poetry includes all her published poems, previously unpublished works, and translations.
• A Reading of “One Art” — Listen to Hrishikesh Hirway reading Bishop’s poem.
• Drafts of “One Art” — Explore all the drafts of this poem, starting from the first two-line draft “How to Lose Things” to the final “One Art.”
• Documentary on Elizabeth Bishop — Have a peek into Bishop’s personal life.
• About Elizabeth Bishop — Learn more about her life and works.

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Amisha Dubey is pursuing a master's degree in English literature. She has always been a literature enthusiast. Her main forte is American and modern Indian poetry.

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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.

From The Complete Poems 1927–1979 by Elizabeth Bishop, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Used with permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.

More by this poet

In the waiting room.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, I went with Aunt Consuelo to keep her dentist's appointment and sat and waited for her in the dentist's waiting room. It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats,

I caught a tremendous fish and held him beside the boat half out of water, with my hook fast in a corner of his mouth. He didn’t fight. He hadn’t fought at all. He hung a grunting weight, battered and venerable and homely. Here and there

Behind Stowe

I heard an elf go whistling by, A whistle sleek as moonlit grass, That drew me like a silver string To where the dusty, pale moths fly, And make a magic as they pass; And there I heard a cricket sing.

Fork with Two Tines Pushed Together

Let me not lose my dream.

Let me not lose my dream, e'en though I scan the veil       with eyes unseeing through their glaze of tears, Let me not falter, though the rungs of fortune perish       as I fare above the tumult, praying purer air, Let me not lose the vision, gird me, Powers that toss       the worlds, I pray!

That is solemn we have ended,— (87)

That is solemn we have ended,—      Be it but a play, Or a glee among the garrets,      Or a holiday,

Or a leaving home; or later,      Parting with a world We have understood, for better      Still it be unfurled.

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Analysis: “One Art”

“One Art” is a villanelle , meaning the poem is a closed form with set rules. Though adhering to most traditional villanelle guidelines, Bishop takes liberty with the form’s refrain at the end. Villanelles contain stanzas comprised of tercets (three-line stanzas) and a finishing quatrain (four-line stanza). There is also a strict rhyme scheme and there are repeating lines (refrains). The tercets, for instance, use an aba rhyming pattern, while the quatrain implements an abaa rhyming pattern (review the Literary Devices section for a comprehensive explanation with examples).

Bishop strikes a humorous tone early in the poem by mentioning losing items as insignificant: “so many things seem filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster” (Lines 2-3). With these opening lines, Bishop places the fault on the items themselves and their “intent” in the disappearing. She bolsters her flippant tone with rhyme; “One Art” has a singsong quality juxtaposed with the serious nature of the poem’s subject.

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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.

Meanings of One Art

Meanings of stanza -1.

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.

Meanings of Stanza -2

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Meanings of Stanza -3

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

Meanings of Stanza -4

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.

Meanings of Stanza -5

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.

Meanings of Stanza -6

—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.

Summary of One Art

Analysis of literary devices in one art.

“I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.”

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

Analysis of Poetic Devices in “One Art”

Quotes to be used.

“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.”

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"One Art" Elizabeth Bishop: Summary

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Summary of "one art", exploring the theme of loss, acceptance and resilience.

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Poems & Poets

Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1926-1979 . Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved. Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

The Complete Poems 1926-1979

Host Elisa New, journalist Katie Couric, media leaders Sheryl Sandberg and Yang Lan, musician Mary Chapin Carpenter, poet Gregory Orr, and psychiatrist Richard Summers discuss Bishop’s masterpiece on loss.

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Read the Poem

by Elizabeth Bishop

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.

Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux: “One Art” from THE COMPLETE POEMS 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop.  Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel

Featured Guests

Katie Couric

Journalist; Author

Mary Chapin Carpenter

Singer-songwriter

Sheryl Sandberg

Technology Executive, Author

Journalist; Media Executive

Gregory Orr

Richard Summers

Psychiatrist

Episode Gallery

Elizabeth Bishop’s childhood was spent between Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, and these regions have an enduring legacy in her poetry. Courtesy of the collection of Elisa New

Elizabeth Bishop is now cherished as one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century. Her poem “One Art” is regarded as her masterpiece. (Photo Credit: Louise Crane and Victoria Kent Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

"Being a musician for the last 30 years, I've been on the road. I feel like I've spent my life on a big tour bus with my face pressed against the window at every stop looking around going, could I live here? And it's that sense of always looking for home, and not sure where it is." - Mary Chapin Carpenter (Photo Credit: Jonathan Stewart)

In the poem, the vaster loss of a continent stands in for the loss of Bishop's lover, Lota de Soares, with whom she lived in Brazil for fifteen years. They shared a home in Petrópolis, north of Rio de Janeiro. (Image used under license from Shutterstock.com)

Readers have debated what the final line of the poem means, including guest Katie Couric, who told us, "I think the most significant line in this whole poem is what's in parentheses in the very last line: (Write it!)."

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Elizabeth Bishop

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To the sagging wharf few ships could come. The population numbered two giants, an idiot, a dwarf, a gentle storekeeper

Land lies in water; it is shadowed… Shadows, or are they shallows, at… showing the line of long sea-weede… where weeds hang to the simple blu… Or does the land lean down to lift…

Moving from left to left, the ligh… is heavy on the Dome, and coarse. One small lunette turns it aside and blankly stares off to the side like a big white old wall—eyed hor…

At six o’clock we were waiting for… waiting for coffee and the charita… that was going to be served from a… —like kings of old, or like a mira… It was still dark. One foot of th…

There are too many waterfalls here… hurry too rapidly down to the sea, and the pressure of so many clouds… makes them spill over the sides in… turning to waterfalls under our ve…

Think of the storm roaming the sky… like a dog looking for a place to… listen to it growling. Think how they must look now, the… lying out there unresponsive to th…

The state with the prettiest name, the state that floats in brackish… held together by mangrave roots that bear while living oysters in… and when dead strew white swamps w…

Minnow, go to sleep and dream, Close your great big eyes; Round your bed Events prepare The pleasantest surprise. Darling Minnow, drop that frown,

At low tide like this how sheer th… White, crumbling ribs of marl prot… and the boats are dry, the pilings… Absorbing, rather than being absor… the water in the bight doesn’t wet…

September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old gran… sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac…

Across the floor flits the mechani… fit for a king of several centurie… A little circus horse with real wh… His eyes are glossy black. He bears a little dancer on his ba…

The sun is blazing and the sky is… Umbrellas clothe the beach in ever… Naked, you trot across the avenue. Oh, never have I seen a dog so ba… Naked and pink, without a single h…

Wasted, wasted minutes that couldn… minutes of a barbaric condescensio… —Stare out the bathroom window at… at their dark needles, accretions… woodenly crystallized, and where t…

Oh, but it is dirty! —this little filling station, oil—soaked, oil—permeated to a disturbing, over—all black translucency.

Earliest morning, switching all th… that cross the sky from cinder sta… coupling the ends of streets to trains of light. now draw us into daylight in our b…

by Elizabeth Bishop

One art summary and analysis of stanza 5.

Like the previous stanza, this one begins with an “I” statement. The speaker tells us that they’ve lost something even bigger than houses, even more emotionally complex than a mother’s watch, and even more indefinable than memories: two cities. Not just any two cities, but “lovely ones.” They warn us, with the phrase “and vaster,” that the losses are about to get even bigger. They’re detailed in the stanza’s second line: a few realms, two rivers, and finally, a continent. The last line is a repetition of the second refrain, this time modified to include the phrase “I miss them,” followed by the now-familiar reassurance that, in spite of missing them, their loss isn't a disaster.

Here, the lost items enter the realm of the hyperbolic. They’re so huge, and so loaded, that they’re no longer possible to misplace or lose ownership of. Instead, the loss here clearly refers to emotional loss or nostalgia. But, even though we understand that the loss here is an emotional rather than a physical one, the sheer enormity of the objects being described is overwhelming. It’s easy to imagine a watch, a house, even a city—but a continent is so big and detached from everyday experience that most people can’t form a mental image of it. As a result of this hyperbolic, outsized imagery, this stanza actually feels almost comical. The speaker is pushing their central argument—that loss is an everyday, easy-to-handle experience—to its furthest conclusion.

The sensation of great speed and physical movement accents this comical, almost cartoonish quality. The first sentence of the stanza is slow and even, with a comma splitting it right down the middle, slowing it down further. After this sentence, things begin to speed up. The first line ends with the phrase “And, vaster.” The word “vaster” very quickly expands the scope of the poem, as if the speaker is using a camera to zoom out. This has a dizzying effect. Moreover, the word carries echoes of the more-common homonym, “faster,” so that without directly referring to speed, Bishop references it. Finally, the phrase “And, vaster,” is a kind of cliffhanger: the line ends without us finding out exactly what “vaster” refers to. This makes us hurry on to the next line to find out. The second line of the stanza lists three lost items in quick succession, squeezing them in more densely than anywhere else in the poem.

This sudden speeding-up, zooming-out, and squeezing-in, like the poem as a whole, simultaneously gives the impression of great loss and a kind of (possibly forced) nonchalance. On the one hand, the speaker’s wording indicates that they aren’t terribly preoccupied with these losses. The phrase “some realms I owned” implies that they aren’t even bothered enough to make a careful count of the losses they’ve suffered, and the phrase “lovely ones” is an impersonal, almost perfunctory-sounding assessment of the two lost cities. At the same time, the sheer speed with which these losses pile up makes the speaker sound overcome, even panicky. The final line of this stanza perfectly captures its push and pull between nonchalance and grief. It begins with the words “I miss them,” a direct expression of emotion about the losses listed in the stanza. But a comma splits the line right in half. The second half reads “but it wasn’t a disaster,” repeating the same insistence we’ve seen so many times by now. It’s as if that comma dividing the sentence is an echo of a split down the middle of the speaker’s mind: half their mind wants to grieve their losses, while the other half wants to dismiss them.

One Art Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for One Art is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for One Art

One Art study guide contains a biography of Elizabeth Bishop, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About One Art
• One Art Summary
• Character List

Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025

The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.

Donald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

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By Jonathan Swan Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman

• Published July 17, 2023 Updated July 18, 2023

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

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