One Art
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 everyday. 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
nest-to-last, of three beloved 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!) a disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop
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Professor: Well what do you think?
Maggie: Good.
Professor: Unacceptable answer. What's the poem about?
Maggie: I don't know.
Professor: Yes, you do. What's it about?
Maggie: Losing?
Professor: What?
Maggie: Love?
Professor: Ah. And how about that? Is the love lost already? Is Bishop writing about it as a possibility, a probability? What?
Maggie: Well... in the beginning she's talking about... losing real things, like keys. And then she... she gets, like... she lost a continent.
Professor: She's getting grandiose.
Maggie: Yeah. And the way she says it is like... like it doesn't matter.
Professor: Ah. Her tone... would you call it detached?
Maggie: I think she wants to sound detached. You know, she wants to... sound... like it doesn't matter... 'cause she knows, deep down... how bad it's gonna feel to lose.
Professor: Lose what? Or whom? Is it a lover?
Maggie: No. It's a friend.