1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

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 keys, the hour badly spent. 
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: 
faces, 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.

by Elizabeth Bishop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop

Note: Next Read Around is:
April 16, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

Loss is a natural part of life, a part of nature, and an essential step in the universal cycles of change. I love that Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle, One Art, frames the skill of facing loss as an art that can be mastered. The key lies in realizing how much we exaggerate and catastrophize the consequences of loss. This is perhaps one of the greatest gifts of aging – we have survived so many losses, small and large, that we so often assumed at the time would permanently devastate us. Even after the worst calamities, we eventually crawl out of the pit, put our lives back together, and go on to do other things. Researcher’s call this phenomenon of resilience “post traumatic growth."

Bishop offers us a second key concept in facing loss: practice! We can practice at the art of losing just as we would a sport or musical instrument. As bishop points out, there are plenty of opportunities to practice letting go. One practice is recognizing that losing is often not actually the disaster it may feel it is. We can start small, like a lost key, and then take in bigger and bigger losses until the grieving heart loosens its hold on things and becomes, in the wisdom of emptiness, a resonant chamber for the music of life.

Prompt Menu

1. Bishop declares that losing is an art. Using the metaphor of losing as an art, describe what style of art it might be or what the tools and practices of a particular artistic expression (painting, sculpture, etc.) might teach us about facing loss.

2. What a list poem about ways of mastering the art of loss.

3. Write an ode to everyday losses (a line of poetry; a broken cup; sunglasses left behind; a computer glitch that prevents you from attending a meeting, etc)

4. Write about the different types of loss and how each affects you (loss of things, places, people; or the loss of some valued experiences or feelings, like loss of love or support.

5. Bishop’s last stanza starting with ” —Even losing you” offers a kind of culmination in intensity of loss for her. What is the most challenging or difficult loss, or potentioal loss, to you. Add the little details of what might be missed (the joking voice, the gesture, etc.)

6. Bishop give intention to things ( “so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost”). Look at specific things in your world and explore what intention it might have for you.

7. Take some experience other than losing (striving, ruminating, planning, pondering, etc) and describe the art of mastering that expereince.

8. Write any of the above or any topic of your choosing as a villanelle (using the same a-b-a rhyming scheme in each verse with the final four line verse a-b-a-a).

9. As usual, write to whatever else about the poem inspires you or whateve else inlife calls to be written.