"One Art" is an amazing poem of loss and love. Bishop's capacity to produce this poem may in itself be a practice in restraint. Maybe Bishop thinks that the limitations of the villanelle will assist her to control her emotions. Bishop skillfully constructs "One Art" stanza by stanza, restating over and over "the art of losing isn't hard to master" (1,6,12). At last, she confesses that it is harder than she cares to admit when she changes the "to" to "too". Possibly while creating the last stanza Bishop meant to express, " the art of losing is too hard to master"
