One Art (Elizabeth Bishop)

I am late tonight and tired, so I'm not up for talking about a new poem, especially when the daily poem on the website I usually use is super long today. So, the poem for today, by Elizabeth Bishop, is one that I have been thinking of a lot lately.

One, this poem's form - a villanelle - is super tricky. I can't imagine writing one, but Elizabeth Bishop does and writes it will such feeling - it doesn't seem formal or stilted (a common side effect when using form). Applause for her.

I love the sense of speed you get from the thing. At first, she only loses minor things - keys, a wasted hour, but as the poem progresses she starts losing more and more. And that last line, the parenthetical, it just kills. It's like a speeding car that ends in a crash.

She was giving a lesson on losing, but at the end, she breaks. The emotion comes ringing through. I choke up when I read it aloud - no matter if for the nth time.

Favorite line: "Lose something every day. Accept the fluster / of lost door keys, the hour badly spent."

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212#sthash.8rsPDKuV.dpuf

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212#sthash.8rsPDKuV.dpuf

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15212#sthash.8rsPDKuV.dpuf

One Art (Elizabeth Bishop)

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night was the first and One Art is the other really famous villanelle, I think. From the little I know about Elizabeth Bishop's life this poem is pretty autobiographical. Not sure how she lost her love, if she ever did, but I do know that she did live and lose homes in many countries.

Villanelles are ridiculously complicated and difficult to write. Which is why, in canon, there are so few--two might be the official count. Wikipedia describes the form: "A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close." The rigidity of this form inspires greatness, I think, in equally great poets.

I like the attitude of N in the poem. The losing, the forgetting of things, even important things, is treated almost as a game. The process seems glib. So, it comes as a shock of human honesty when this line comes: "though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." And suddenly, the rigid form makes perfect sense when compared to poem's content. N is holding back deep emotions and is probably seconds from crashing, from bawling. Forms like villanelle are best suited when they add to the poem's content, I believe.

Favorite line: "The art of losing isn't hard to master"