Sign Inventory Week 1

 "One Art"
Elizabeth Bishop
 

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.

 Sign List

* In regards to form, the poem is sort of cloaked by the villanelle. Initially, the poem appears to be a clear attempt at the form, yet it also employs minor variations that declassify it.

* The poem begins with a devotion to candid, proselike language and increasingly becomes obscure. Ex. the first two stanzas' literal meaning seems rather clear. By stanza three, the direct language gives way to language that's increasingly figurative. 

* Mimicking this increasing employment of figurative language, the poem's rhyming also seems increasingly fractured and or strained. Example: "faster" and "last, or" and "gesture"

* The speaker seems concerned with both the loss of time and the loss of space. For example, the speaker urges the reader to "accept" the loss of an "hour badly spent," and recalls losing "my mother's watch." The speaker encourages the reader to practice losing "faster." Additionally, the speaker is concerned with the loss of space, or perhaps distance: along with urging the reader to practice losing "faster," the speaker is insistent upon "losing farther." Recalling the loss of a house, the speaker then lists the losses of "two cities," "some realms," "two rivers," "a continent" and even "where it was you meant to travel."

* The poem seems to revolve around the idea of ownership in interesting ways. For example: the speaker loses " my mother's watch," "my last, or/ next-to-last, of three loved houses" and "some realms I owned."

* The poem hinges itself around continual negation: " the art of losing ISN'T hard to master" "their loss is NO disaster" "NONE of these will bring disaster" "WASN'T a disaster" "I SHAN'T have lied" "Wasn't a disaster" "the art of losing''s NOT too hard to master"

* At several instances the speaker directly speaks to the reader in a conversational manner: stanzas two and three and the final stanza.