Loss In Elizabeth Bishop's Poem 'One Art'

Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” did not discuss what I was expecting. I thought the poem would be discussing a possible hobby the author enjoys and how she has refined her art. I was stunned to see the poem’s main topic point of loss and how she expresses examples of losses in her life. Bishop has constructed her poem wonderfully by using symbolism, displaying different themes, and how the title exposes multiple in the poem.
When Elizabeth Bishop writes this poem she is in the later stages of life and approximately three years from when she dies, so I picture her sitting down and dwelling over her life. She starts by describing some everyday items that we all lose, so we can relate to what she is discussing. Bishop seems to use personification on some of the objects when she says, “so many things seem filled with the intent/ to be lost that their loss is no disaster” (2-3). I see this as her showing symbolism of all the things she has lost that there are items that …show more content…
Bishop is showing us how loss will occur and that we need to know how we can cope with the loss when it happens because it will occur at multiple points in our lives. There is also the art of how she developed this poem. She wrote it with a villanelle structure, which has six stanzas along with an aba rhyme scheme repeated in the first five stanzas. The scheme also involves ending the poem with the last two lines rhyming. Along with the villanelle structure, she included iambic pentameter meter to give the poem a type of flow with syllable sounds. Bishop’s iambic pentameter does not follow the exact scheme the whole poem, but it does for majority in order for us to be able to say the poem is written in that meter. Those two combined are known to be very difficult for writers and that is why her writing this can be considered an art since not all poetry writers are able to pull it