03-25-2014, 01:15 PM
I adore Elizabeth Bishop. One of my top-shelf poets. I'm sure most are familiar with this poem, but I felt the want to post it here in this thread.
What blows me away about this poem, beyond the mere acoustics of it, is the slow and subtle mounting irony within it, building up beneath the happenstances expressed almost off-handedly therein, taking you right up to the edge, right to the point where it sticks its dagger into your heart.
WOW! What a talent. What a poet. What a poem. A wonderful poem to read live, especially during national poetry month.
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 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.
What blows me away about this poem, beyond the mere acoustics of it, is the slow and subtle mounting irony within it, building up beneath the happenstances expressed almost off-handedly therein, taking you right up to the edge, right to the point where it sticks its dagger into your heart.
WOW! What a talent. What a poet. What a poem. A wonderful poem to read live, especially during national poetry month.
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 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.
You can't hate me more than I hate myself. I win.
"When the spirit of justice eloped on the wings
Of a quivering vibrato's bittersweet sting."
"When the spirit of justice eloped on the wings
Of a quivering vibrato's bittersweet sting."