One Art

The last two lines of the poem possess an extremely powerful sense of defeat and sorrow.

It is a challenge for many who have lost loved ones and must learn to overcome their loss by using different coping mechanisms and symbolizations. Sebold shows how coping with grief is heard because humans hold emotional bonds with each other and as a result of The Lovely

In the first lines of “One Art,” Bishop’s tone is that of a melancholy nature. She states that “losing isn’t hard to master” (line 1). She follows this by proclaiming that everything intends to “be lost” from the beginning, so disaster should not be felt when those losses take place (line 3). Erin Christian talks somewhat of this in her essay, “On Loss in Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’.” One may infer that Bishop’s tone, in these lines, reflects this opinion of easiness with the rhyming of the word “master” with “disaster” (Christian 541). This style is used in a villanelle to be rigid and almost unplanned, which reflects the tone of Bishop’s words in that her opinions and statements throughout are rather unfocused or disorganized. The way that she encourages her readers to “lose something every day” is, in her view, a way to get used to the

A poem which explores the feeling of loss is ‘Visiting Hour’ by Norman MacCaig. In this powerful and moving poem, the writer uses techniques such as imagery, symbolism and word choice to effectively grip the reader and keeps them with him throughout the poem.

The narrator questions at the end of the poem “how could Arthur go?” (50). Even though she is confused by death, she is still afraid of it. Bishop’s poem is unique in a sense that it is written through the point of view of a small child. Furthermore, the child is experiencing a life changing and painful concept for the first time. The child’s innocence is shown by her response to death. By finding distractions through comparisons, word choices, and even a stuffed loon in response to the inability to comprehend the painful concept of death is the theme Bishop was trying to portray. She also touches on the idea that trying to comprehend the finality of death, takes a toll on some

The deceased are often remembered in either the best of themselves or the worst. Family and friends usually look back and reminisce on the most striking qualities held by their lost loved ones. Death is a shocking and confusing period for those affected by it and the whirlwind of emotions, such as the various stages of grief, catch many by surprise. Born in 1908, Theodore Roethke was an American poet who was deemed one of the most proficient and leading poets of his generation. In his poem, “Elegy for Jane”, Roethke uses a variety of poetic devices to express the different themes of love, happiness, and grief. His use of imagery, symbolism, persona, tone and word choice, contribute to the deeper meaning of the poem, assisting in the expression of the speaker’s feelings for Jane and of how, Jane, herself felt.

It is safe to assume that the author is no stranger to death. He has seen many people close to him grieve. He has noticed that everyone grieves differently. He understands the need for God’s grace in the midst of grief to get one through the stages of grief.

In W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues” (pg. 762), the poem takes place a short time after the speaker’s beloved has died and how the speaker feels that his life has been forever changed and that he will never recover. In Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” (pg. 767), the poem takes place a short time after the speaker’s beloved has passed away and how she feels that she can master the feeling of losing someone the she loves. However, she seems to be in denial over her true feelings. Between the two poem’s, Auden’s “Funeral Blues” seems to do a better job than  Bishop’s “One Art”, in using rhyme, alliteration, and structure to show the reader the feelings and emotional state of the speaker after their beloved has died.

In “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, Thomas describes men as wise, good, wild, and grave, and displays their perspective about death. For wise men, “because their words had forked no lightning, they / do not go gentle into that good night” (5-6). The metaphor in the line reflects wise men’s regret in life as their words, the ability of intelligent people, forked no lightning, meaning they did not leave any significant marks in history before dying. Therefore as good night, a metaphor for death, approaches, wise men resist dying to satisfy their discontent, and all other men convey similar perspectives. However, since night will come anyways, Thomas know men cannot escape death, so he agonizes for his incompetence in saving his father. Comparably in “One Art,” Bishop claims “so many things seemed filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster” (2-3). The disappeared objects metaphorize Bishop’s loss of precious memory fragment, such as losing the mothers’ watch representing the farewell with her mother. At first, Bishop expresses she is fine with things vanishing. Yet overtime, the materials grow more substantial, and ultimately, when Bishop separates with her beloved, she notes “it may look like (Write it!) a disaster” (19), mentioning loss is indeed a disaster. She knows the farewell was

When a loved when is gone it feels like a hole in the world. With much grief he says, “Never again will anyone inhabit the world the way he did. Questions I have can never now get answers. The world is emptier. My son is gone. Only a hole remains, Avoid, a gap, never to be filled”(33). This phrase describes his emotions and how he views the world without his son. The author gives advice on what to say to someone who is mourning. He says to never say its Ok because its never okay and death is awful. “ What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation” (34). When some passes away no one really knows what his or her loved ones are feeling because each death is unique and each person is different. The wisest of words don’t even make the pain go away, and all that can be done is lending an ear to listen, a shoulder to lean on.

Bishop decided to stay in Brazil for a couple months. While living there, Bishop met an architect named Lota de Macedo. The two became very close and had an affair that lasted years. Unfortunately, Lota de Macedo committed suicide in 1967. As a result, Bishop wrote her most famous poem, “One Art.” In the poem, Bishop discusses how easy it is to lose things. She starts with small, insignificant objects, such as keys, but as the poem continues, the objects become more significant. For example, the last thing the speaker says is, “Even losing you (the/ joking voice, a gesture /I love) I shan’t have lied.” This line is thought to be a reference to her relationship with

“Without thinking at all/I was my foolish aunt.”(48-49) , In “One Art” Elizabeth compares herself to her aunt. When her aunt cried out from the dentist office she felt her as a fullish women, but because she is reacting In a similar way to the magazine, she compares her aunts foolishness to her own. It was an unexpected realization that her reactions connected her to her aunt in a way she never felt before in her six years. “Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster/of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.”(48-49), The speaker wants to show us that theres nothing you can do but to accept you will lose things and to not let it get to you. In the poem her losses begin as insignificant objects that can be replaced but then she escalates her poem by significant losses like people, places, and homes. Its as if shes telling you to accept it, but she implicitly is showing us that shes not over her losses. She wants everyone to believe shes fine but we as the readers are not buying it.

The villanelle poem “One Art”, written by Elizabeth Bishop is an optimistic tribute to her deceased lover and intends to reassure herself in her time of grief that it’s almost human nature to lose that which we love, considering her background in loss, her addition of impersonal comments, and her use of clever diction. The poem starts off simply talking about how there are things that we intentionally lose and gradually increases the significance of the thing we’ve lost until she’s talking about losing a loved one.

From depths of grief the poet sweeps back to life by clinging to his greatest faith which is in his

Her diction is strong, confident, and unweathering. In the second stanza, the speaker introduces the first item that isn’t difficult to lose and reminds readers of the daily life hassles of finding lost keys. This is the first example of something in life that is easily lost for her. She further backs it up her original statement by saying that their intent is “to be lost” (3), saying that things are meant to be lost, no matter what happens. She instructs the audience to “lose” and “accept” (4), which suggests that she has gone through loss before and it would be better to accept losing things since it would not hurt as much. She then instructs the audience to “practice” (7) losing, so her heart will not be crushed when the audience is accustomed to losing. By line 6, the speaker gets frantic. Her words become careless and the words take a sort of rhythm. She says “losing farther, losing faster”. The alliteration in this line emphasizes how much and how fast she has lost that it is in a place so unreachable at this point. She then loses “places, and names, and where it was [she] meant / to travel” (8-9). She lost more important things, but they were bearable.