Elizabeth Bishop’s opening line to the poem ‘One Art’ is quite audacious when she suggests that ‘the art of losing isn’t hard to master’. Basically what the narrator is claiming is that we should not take losing to heart because there are things that are meant to be lost.
According to her we can only tolerate big loses once we get comfortable with losing things of little worth to us. By losing small stuff like ‘door keys’, losing time we gradually practice the art of loss.
We notice that the significance of the losses mentioned by the narrator seem to be increasing as we read the poem. Initially it is the things we make an attempt to recall, for instance places and names. It then moves to particular personal stuff like a mother’s watch then to homes we previously loved. As these losses become more and more significant we begin to question the speaker’s supposed ‘art of losing’. We wonder whether she still has some attachment to these things and whether she is as convincing as she sounds. We are left uncertain about how much loss the speaker can actually tolerate.
Is the speaker really this lighthearted about loss? The last stanza uncovers what kind of loss actually troubles the speaker. It is the loss of a loved one and the speaker has not mentioned whether it is a friend, family member or lover. She halfheartedly tries to conceal the sadness she has about this loss by saying that it is not a ‘disaster’ even though it looks like one. The last line gives her away and we now notice that she has not truly mastered the art of loss.
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Looking at each stanza, the first stanza is where the speaker fearlessly declares that there is no big deal about loss and we should be comfortable with it. ‘The art of losing isn’t hard to master….their loss is no disaster’.
In the second stanza the poem continues with a dull tone and persuades us to practice losing stuff daily by learning to lose less significant things like door keys. She tells us to ‘accept the fluster’ suggesting that we should not be agitated by the loss of these items. It is not just the loss of things that the speaker talks but also the loss of an intangible stuff like ‘time’.
In the third stanza the losses mentioned by the speaker seem to be unclear but they keep growing in significance. People’s names and places do not seem to be things of much significance.
Things begin to get personal in the fourth stanza when the speaker mentions that she lost her mother’s watch. A mother’s watch may carry a lot of emotional significance. The loss of a house you once loved may mean losing all the pleasant memories you once shared. The speaker still insists and comforts us that ‘the art of losing isn’t too hard to master’. This time we begin to doubt the speaker’s message.
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The fifth stanza talks of lost cities, realm, two rivers and a continent. These things seem to be all too mysterious and we begin to wonder what meaning they carry to the speaker. At this point the speaker wants us to begin speculating a lot about what kind of loss she is actually referring to. But she still reassures us that losing all these things was no ‘disaster’. Are we convinced?
In the last stanza the speaker reveals to us that all along she has been lamenting the loss of a loved one. The poet does not inform us what kind of relationship they shared but this is one loss she has not mastered. All the boldness and humor is just an attempt to cover up her emotional vulnerability. She still misses this person she recalls ‘the joking voice, a gesture I love’. Deep inside, she is still human.