National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

(Ahh, somehow I've forgotten to post for the last week!)

One Art 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.

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

I really like this one! I encountered it through April poetry month before, but was happy to read it again. Mostly villanelles don't work for me, because after a few repetitions the lines start feeling ridiculous to me, or I just get bored, but this one works beautifully -- the repetition makes sense, and the lines are strong enough that they're not eroded by it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. This one I hardly even noticed was a villanelle at first, because it doesn't have that echoing quality a lot of them have. Or, at least, this one makes it work!