







Born February 8, 1911 in Worcester,
Massachusetts
Died October 6, 1979 in Boston,
Massachusetts
Father passed away at 8 months
Mother admitted to a mental asylum from
1916 until she died in 1934
Sent to live in Nova Scotia with her
grandparents.
Paternal family got custody and was forced
to move to Worcester.
Received her bachelor’s degree in 1934 from
Vassar College.
Traveled parts of Europe (France, Spain,
Italy), Ireland, and North Africa from 1935-







Most of her poetry is written about her travels
and her time settled in Florida.
Influenced by Marianne Moore (close friend,
mentor, and stability in her life) and Robert
Lowell.
She avoids writing about her personal and
instead chooses to write about her
surroundings
Never really considered a major force in
contemporary literature until 1976 when her last
book was publish Geography III.
1956 received Pulitzer Prize for her collection
Poems: North & South/ A Cold Spring.
Complete Poems won a National Book Award in
1970
1970-1977 taught at Harvard.








16 drafts of One Art.
Bishop had 2 known domestic partners.
Her first was Maria Carlota Costallat de Macedo
Soares, also known as Lota de Macedo Soares,
and Alice Methfessel.
Her relationship with Lota lasted from 1951-1967
Bishop’s more significant and more known
relationship with Methfessel lasted from 19711979.
She lived in constant fear of losing Methfessel.
Bishop had many health problems and suffered
from alcoholism and her constant insecurity tired
Methfessel.
One Art and its drafts were written to express that
fear of losing the one woman she could not live
without.
Marianne Moore
Elizabeth
Bishop &
Robert Lowell




This poem is a Villanelle.
A villanelle is a French style nineteen- line poem
with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five
tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third
lines of the opening tercet repeating alternately
at the end of the following tercets with both
repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain.
A Tercet is a set or group of three lines of verse
rhyming together or connected by rhyme with an
adjacent tercet.
The meter of the poem is a very loose form of
Iambic Pentameter. The lines in the poem contain
either 10 or 11 syllables making every other
syllable stressed.



The Tone at the beginning of the poem is calm
acceptance, then gradually changes to becoming
sorrowful. The tone starts to shift on line 7 “Then
practice losing farther, losing faster” From then
on the items she loses are more important so
you can see how the poem gets more saddening
as you continue to read.
Rhyme Scheme; ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA,
ABAA
The rhyme scheme is formed that way because
there are only two end rhymes that the poem
follows “Intent” or “Master”.
Stanza I
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
So many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their lost is no disaster.

This stanza boldly declares that loss isn’t a big
deal, and that we should get used to it.
Stanza II
Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.



The poem instructs us to practice losing different
insignificant things everyday.
The speaker tells us to “accept the fluster” that
such losses bring, so we can eventually stop
getting flustered by them at all. (1)
~ Fluster - agitated confusion
The speaker mentions something abstract like
time can be lost. (2)
Stanza III
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
Places, names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.



The losses grow more significant but still remain
vague.
The speaker brings up things we attempt to
remember but eventually forget – things like
names, places you’ve been, or would like to go.
These losses still aren’t important.
Stanza IV
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.


The speaker now mentions some things that she
has lost that are of some emotional significance
to her like her, “mother’s watch” Maybe her mom
has passed away, or it was a personal gift from
her. She also mentions the houses she’s loved
which is sure to be full of memories.
The speaker, even still, reassures us again that,
“the art of losing isn’t hard to master”
Stanza V
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.



The losses here are a little mysterious and difficult to
understand.
“Realm” is just a fancy and old word that means
kingdom or royal land. So when the speaker says
that it might make us think that she must have been
like a queen of a mysterious place long ago, but lost
her power.
A lot of questions can be asked about this stanza.
What makes the river so special? Did she live in two
cities? How could she lose a whole continent?
Maybe this all represents a phase in her life that’s
Stanza VI
-- 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.
 This is the main point of the poem. We discover that the loss
the speaker has been talking about is of a beloved person.
We’re not sure who this person is but it’s clear that this is
the one loss that the poet hasn’t mastered.
 She remembers some things about the person, “the joking
voice, the gesture I love” and finally admits that the art of
losing is hard, but not too hard to master, and that some
losses do sometimes look like disaster.
 Her mini breakdown in the last line when she repeats the
word like and the interjection “Write it!” demonstrate the true
difficulty of coming to terms with loss. We see her
confidence disintegrate. (4)
 The Physical World
& The Abstract
 Master- somebody in control.
 It’s all mental, let it go.
 Can be applied to our lives, we have
grown materialistic beyond belief. If
disaster strikes will our possessions
comfort us?
 Peace of mind









Line 1: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master”
Here the author’s word choice sets a calm reassuring tone, “art of losing isn’t hard to master
These words makes you think that losing things are not such a big deal.
Line 2: “so many things seem filled with the intent”
The words “seem” “filled” “with” “intent” also contribute to the tone of the first stanza because those words
are more on the positive side making the reader feel like things will always be lost and that it’s okay.
Line 3: “To be lost that their loss is no disaster.”
The words “lost” and “loss” are negative here, however, the addition of the word “no” cancel out the
negative connotation of “loss” which creates a tone of acceptance. Also the word “their” indicates she’s
using 3rd person.
Line 4: “Lose something every day. Accept the fluster”
“lose” is negative but then she states to “accept/fluster”. Fluster has a negative connotation but she keeps
the calm tone with adding “accept”
Line 5: “lost door keys/hour badly spent”
Bishop leans more to the negative side with “lose” and “badly” but overall, still calm.
Line 6: Restate first line.
Line 7: “Then practice losing farther, losing faster”
This is where the tone shifts. Bishop creates the same format as the previous lines but she uses the words
“losing farther/losing faster”. These specific words changes the tone of the poem in an instant. The reader
starts to feel more upset when arriving to this line.
Line 8-9: “places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.”
The use of the words “none” “bring” and “disaster” contribute to the already expressed calm tone but also
support a sorrowful tone since she uses these negative words. She also uses the word “you” which is
second person.
Line 10-11: “I lost my mother’s watch. And look! My last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.”
The words “lost” “last” “loved/went” add on to this sorrowful tone because these are words of depression.
The use of the words “I” and “my” express first person writing. That means that these are personal facts
which make the reader feel more sadness for Elizabeth.






Line 12: Restate of first line.
Line 13-14: “I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I
owned, two rivers, a continent”
The tone is yet again supported by the words “lost” “lovely” “vaster”.
Now it is definitely depressing. Especially because of the words “I”
and “owned”. This shows how she was the one that had the
misfortune to lose these “lovely” areas.
Line 15: “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.”
Here Bishop changes the tone mid sentence! On one line you have
the word “miss” which is grief but on the other side, you have
“wasn’t a disaster” which causes the tone to shift from
unpleasantness, to calm acceptance.
Line 16-19: “Even losing you, (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I
shan’t have lied”
“losing you” creates a miserable tone but it is altered a little with the
use of the words “joking” and “love” which changes the tone into
becoming content but is quickly brought back to gloomy with the
words “shan’t” and “lied” that followed.
“It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may
look like (Write it!) like disaster.”
The tone dramatically shifts once more to a grieving, reassuring
tone with the words “evident/losing’s not too hard/(Write it!)”. The
phrase “not too hard to master” support a more regretful tone since
she backtracks and states that the art of losing is actually hard to
master. “(Write it!)” also contributes to a sorrowful tone because this
shows how she even struggled to write this poem.
Material Objects
 "One Art“ does not throw loss in a direct way to the
reader. Instead the poet slowly adds to the
value/significance of objects as the poem
progresses.
 Bishop orders the things we "own“ from least
significant to most. As the poem progresses, our
possessions become more and more meaningful.
 We see by the end that the loss of simple objects,
like a key or a watch, becomes an extended
metaphor for the loss of other things the poet loves,
such as her past homes/lovers.
Examples

Lines 2-3: The poet personifies the lost objects, stating
that they "seem filled with the intent to be lost” that is to
say, they want to get lost- they are meant to get lost.

Lines 4-5: "Lost door keys” are mentioned alongside
misspent hours, and we see that objects and more
abstract things, like time, are viewed equal.

Line 10: The poet mentions casually that she lost her
mother’s watch and there is much more meaning behind
this than we read. The transition into more important
objects has begun and its obvious through the bio that
this is a symbol of her relationship with her mother.
Homes & Places

The poet starts to discuss her loved homes and visited
places. This allows the transition to be smoother into
the final stanza where she explains her fear of losing
her significant other.

The idea of possession and things that can be lost is
greatly expanded by her inclusion of "three loved
houses”, and in the following stanza, "two cities” and
"some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.”

Suddenly its no longer the loss of simple, material,
replaceable things. Now its irreplaceable, emotionally
valuable people and objects.
Homes & Places


Lines 10-11: The poem is made more interesting
by introduction of a new idea: the loss of a home.
The poet mentions that she lost “(her) last, or/
next-to-last, of three loved houses”
Lines 13-14: The poet takes this abstraction one
step further, mentioning not only specific homes,
but also beloved cities and a continent that she’s
lost. This makes us wonder exactly how she
"owned” these places. These places are perhaps
symbolic of the memories she had of them, or of
the relationships she once had there.



Art is a double-edged sword here. The poet
focuses on "the art of losing," which she depicts
as something wherein practice makes perfect.
However, this isn’t necessarily an art we can ever
truly master. The poem’s ironic command that we
"lose something every day” to practice getting
over the sensation of loss implies that if we lose
enough small things, we’ll be ready when we
lose bigger or more important ones.
No matter how practiced we become at the art of
losing we can never really be prepared for
losses, which will always seem like "a disaster."


The other art involved in this poem is that of
poetry. The entire poem functions as a kind of
coping mechanism for the poet, who forces
herself to confront her losses by writing them
down.
There is some power in this act of writing, as
shown in her last line, in which the poet forces
herself to admit that the loss of the beloved "may
look (Write it!) like disaster”
1. What kind of poem is One Art?
a) Villanelle
b) Sonnet
c) Lyric
2. What literary device is used in line two of the first stanza:
“so many things seem filled with the intent”?
a) Personification
b) to increase the size of things you lose.
c) to accept losing things in life.
3. As the poem progresses, the ______ become more and more
meaningful.
a) Pathos
b)Possessions
c)Rhyming
4. What does realm mean in this poem?
a) kingdom
b) domain of activity
c) farmland
5.
How many drafts of One Art is there?
a) 12
b) 1
c) 16 d) 27
6. What does fluster mean according to the poem?
a) waste
b) nervousness caused by confusion
c) anger
7. There is a war in Bishop’s mind because of the relationship b/w
_________ & __________
a) Love & Lust
b)Master & Disaster
c)The Physical World & The Abstract
8. What does the watch symbolize?
a) her relationship with her mother d) hours lost
b) her love for material things
c) time
9. Where did Bishop teach?
a) Vassar College
b) Fellowship of the Academy c) Harvard
10. Who were Elizabeth Bishop’s main influences?
a) Lota de Macedo & Alice Methfessel
b) Robert Lowell & Marianne Moore
c) her grandparents