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.
Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1926-1979. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved.
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Source: The Complete Poems 1926-1979 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983)
Get the paperback edition of Bishop's book Geography III on sale here.
About Elizabeth Bishop
Born on February 8, 1911, in Worcester, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet, short-story writer and painter. Bishop's father died when she was less than a year old, and shortly after, her mother, suffering seriously from mental illness, was committed to an institution. Raised first in Nova Scotia by her maternal grandparents, Bishop was eventually brought to live in Massachusetts with her wealthy paternal grandparents. Respected, yet, somewhat of an obscure figure in the world of American literature during her lifetime, her reputation grew after her death in 1979. Many critics, such as Larry Rohter in the New York Times, have referred to Bishop as “one of the most important American poets” of the 20th century.
A perfectionist who preferred to work at her craft meticulously, she published only 101 poems during her lifetime. Bishop's verse is one noted with precise descriptions of the physical world and a touch of poetic serenity, but her underlying themes speak of the human experiences of grief and longing, and the struggle to find a sense of belonging.
Education, Con Spirito and Travelling
Educated at the elite Walnut Hills School for Girls and Vassar College, Bishop's years at Vassar were tremendously important. There, she met Marianne Moore, a fellow poet who became a lifelong friend. Working with Mary McCarthy, Eleanor Clark, and Margaret Miller, among others, Bishop founded the short-lived but influential literary journal Con Spirito, an alternative to the well-established Vassar Review. Bishop lived in New York and traveled extensively in France, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and North Africa after she graduated. Her poetry is marked with descriptions of her journeys, experiences, and the sights she saw during her travels. Her first volume of poetry, North and South, appeared in 1946, and included many of the poems she wrote while living in Key West.
Bishop's Pulitzer Prize and Lota de Macedo Soares
Bishop's second poetry collection, Poems: North & South/A Cold Spring, was published in 1955 and received the Pulitzer Prize. Bishop left Key West in 1944 and lived in Brazil with her lover, the architect Lota de Macedo Soares for fourteen years. In 1967, Soares took her own life, and Bishop spent less time in Brazil than in New York, San Francisco, and Massachusetts. In 1970, she took a teaching position at Harvard, and later that year, received a National Book Award in Poetry for The Complete Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969). Considered for years as a "poet's poet", Bishop's reputation increased greatly after the 1976 publication of Geography III and her winning of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, thus, establishing her as a major force in contemporary literature.
Painting, Verse, and Tranquil Observation
Bishop was not only a poet, but a painter, as well, and her verse, like visual art, is noted for its sharpness, wit, and ability to capture significant scenes. Independently wealthy and enjoying a life of some privilege, much of Bishop's poetry still celebrates working-class settings: fishing villages, busy factories, and farms. Analyzing her small but incredibly significant body of work for Bold Type, Ernie Hilbert wrote:
“Bishop’s poetics is one distinguished by tranquil observation, craft-like accuracy, care for the small things of the world, a miniaturist’s discretion and attention. Unlike the pert and wooly poetry that came to dominate American literature by the second half of her life, her poems are balanced like Alexander Calder mobiles, turning so subtly as to seem almost still at first, every element, every weight of meaning and song, poised flawlessly against the next.”
Academy Fellowship and Death
In 1964, Elizabeth Bishop was awarded an Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement, and served as a Chancellor from 1966 to 1979.
She died on October 6, 1979, in Boston.
Elizabeth Bishop: Books on Sale Now
1. Poems, Elizabeth Bishop (paperback)
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3. Prose, Elizabeth Bishop (paperback)
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