4 Nguyen

Huong NguyenAustin DanielsEN 1113-06December 2, 2014

Loss has always been a notion that can entail insurmountable sorrow. People, as to protect themselves from the sufferings, learn to overlook the pain and find ways to move on, to focus on a bigger picture. Elizabeth Bishop, one of the most important American poets in the twentieth century, acknowledges this common coping mechanism, and with her own share in the experiences, explains in her poem, One Art, the true sentiments of loss that people tend to avoid and brush off. With the precise and multilayered description of the physical world, and her somewhat abrupt changing perspectives, Bishop beautifully transfers the nature of loss into a form of villanelle where emotions are at first captured and impeded then finally break free from the conformity, oozing out the true intense heartbreaking essence. In the first three stanzas, Bishop introduces the art of losing that can be mastered through practice. In a role of a mentor with years of exposure to real life, Bishop, in an advisory tone similar to eat an apple a day, tells readers to Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent (3-4), and practice losing farther, losing faster (7). Her instruction is very technical and reaches to a point that is somewhat impersonal, like a prescription of a doctor to a cold. Through such an instruction, Bishop is trying to convey the notion that by practicing losing, from small, inconsequential objects to somewhat more significant things like places and names, one can become acquainted with loss. Having suffered immense loss at an early age, Bishop develops a great deal of experiences that help her establish a credible perspective, emphasizing that no matter how difficult a loss may appear, people can overcome it. Bishop writes One Art in villanelle, one of the strictest forms of poetry, which helps to mold loss in a specific rigid structure, showing that when handled with control, loss wont pose as a threat to ones state of mind. The saying The art of losing isnt hard to master and the idea that loss wont bring any disaster are both introduced in the first stanza and then repeated in the next two. It, therefore, further enhances the seemingly malleable nature of loss.The initial picture that Bishop paints about loss is straightforward and reassuring, however, the subtle changes in the next two stanzas, the fourth and fifth one, make the readers begin to wonder if loss is actually that easy to control. Bishop changes her tone, from technical and impersonal to anecdotal, when she starts to recite the loss that shes encountered, her mothers watch (line 10), houses (11), two cities (13), realms, rivers, and continents. It is a long list of the things that Bishop lost, and although there is no special identifications of those objects, the readers can still feel Bishops grief and longing towards what was once hers through the way she briefly describes each thing as loved, and lovely. In these two stanzas, Bishop still strictly follows the rigid villanelle form, with the precise rhyming went and continent, master and disaster. While pertaining to such an ordered and controlled structure, Bishop still cannot stop some of her emotions from breaking loose, finding their place in I miss them (16), but she then quickly gains back control by stating but it wasnt a disaster. It is like a mini-breakdown and although order is quickly established, Bishops at first credible statement on a benign nature of loss is starting to lose its credibility. Although the intensity of the loss that Bishops encountered has been increasing from small things filled with the intent to be loss to things that she must have worked very hard for like realms and continents, it is still incomparable to you, as she sets up a whole stanza for that person. It is also this stanza, the last one, that disproves what Bishop initially believes in the essence of loss, exposing the true vulnerable nature of human when dealing with loss. Right from the beginning, Bishop already admits you means the most to her by saying Even losing you. This time, its not just lovely you but you with the joking voice, the gesture I love. Bishops departure from the calming, inattentive tone, and her abrupt turning away from general audience to just you indicates how occupied she is with the persons image and how intense such impact of losing you is when its always one the verge of disrupting Bishops. The fortress of self-protection from the sorrow that loss brings crumbles as the seemingly rigid cover of the villanelle form fails to contain the raging impact of loss. Bishops final attempt to tame her own wild heart by saying The art of losings not too hard to master reveals her own defeat; the perfect structure of villanelle ceases to exist, and noticing the overwhelming victory of loss, Bishop concedes though it may seem like disaster.One Art succeeds in perfectly conveying what people tend to do when facing loss, and how in the end, despite no matter what is done, concession to the sorrow it brings is inevitable. Bishop skillfully uses the villanelle poetry form to manifest the powerful sentiment of loss that people tend to avoid. With simple yet thought-provoking descriptive skills, Bishop establishes not a solution, but just her personal take on the true meaning of losing the things one loves, how even the most intense depth of denial can never completely erase the trace of what once were ever so important.