On loss

[kaberett]

Hey. I'm Alex; you might have seen me around here before. I'm hosting this week, and I'm going to be focusing on change: all else aside, this weekend I moved cities and started a new job. So. I'm going to start by introducing you to a poem about loss.

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.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

Loss is not, of course, the only form of change, and I'll be talking more about several of the others over the course of this week. I'm sorry that all I have to offer you today is this poem, but I'd love for you to talk about your own favourites on this topic, or to talk about this poem. (I love, too, the odd constraints of the villanelle, and how they always feel slightly uncomfortable to me. This is reflected, I think, in my favourite villanelles, which are all, yes, about uncomfortable topics.)

Comments

[calissa]

This poem is an old friend, though one I've not seen in some years. It is lovely to see it again here.

Much has changed since I last encountered this poem. I've lost a grandfather, for one, who in turn had lost large chunks of memory before he died.

I find myself wondering whether views on this poem really come down to how the word 'disaster' is interpreted. The last stanza puts me in mind of the phrase 'anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger'.

I'm reminded of another poem about loss. I'm going to have to track it down and post a link.

While I enjoy poetry, I don't actually know much about poetry forms. I'm off to research villanelles for a bit.

[jjhunter]

:o)

You might enjoy previous posts here at the comm about the villanelle format.

[calissa]

Thank you! I shall definitely check it out.

[kaberett]

I think a lot of it is trying to convince oneself that loss is not an utter destruction and utter ending; that it cannot always spread its tendrils through everything one does, that it does not scour one wholly clean.

-- though of course sometimes it does, and learning to live through and with that is... yet another challenge to face.