Elizabeth Bishop – July 19, Iyengar III

A last villanelle, this one is definitely famous! Several people sent it to me plus it is in my poetry textbook as a prime example. Unfortunately, I received it from a very beloved student, on the day Buster died (she didn’t know). It did me in. Definitely “a disaster”. But I can’t do justice to my little villanelle obsession without sharing it.

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:

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

thought it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.