4:34 p.m. - 2008-06-18
2 nice poems i read today
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.
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i like the analysis by Rinda Suparatana from Canada: http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Elizabeth_Bishop/57/comments
�One Art� is written in the repetitive structure of the villanelle to reinforce the habitual nature of the speaker�s losses. The effective repetitions of the villanelle also supports the perspective of the poem. Bishop reviews, or puts into perspective, a lifetime of losses. Some of the losses are minor - �the lost door keys, the hour badly spent�, the memories. Some of losses are major, like houses, cities and a loved one. In looking back at all these losses, Bishop emphasizes through repetition that none of them, in perspective, amounted to �disaster� -lines 3, 4, 12 and 19. To Bishop the �art of losing� � lines 1, 6, 12 and 17 � is natural for everyone because it is inherent in the nature of things and people that there is an �intent to be lost� � lines 2 and 3. The art of losing then is so natural for humans that it is not a hard one to �master� � lines 1, 6, 12 and 18.
The speaker�s attitude is one of acceptance despite the emotion and time wasted looking for what we have lost. Sometimes we spend so much time looking for lost items like �door keys� we get frustrated and it seems like a disaster at the time.
At the end of the poem Bishop has convinced herself that her repetitive losses can be survived. With their slight but suggestive variations, the repetitive descriptions of loss - and the realization that they are not disasters - become the method by which Bishop�s lesson can be passed through to us as well as to the speaker herself.
The formal structure of the villanelle actually increases the emotional tone of the poem and makes us understand the personal sense of loss that Bishop feels in writing this poem.
Finally, in �One Art� Bishop talks about the need to write about losses, demonstrating an understanding that writing puts these losses into perspective.
This way, in recognizing our losses we can come to terms with them and prepare ourselves for the future losses that must naturally come.
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another good poem which i talked about last time:
If
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
