The Villanelle

One Art
by: 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 everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing further, 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.

The poem 'One Art' is literally a story of the speaker's lost things in life (items, places, people, etc.). However, in a deeper sense, as the title implies, it draws a connection between the mental control one gains after over coming loss, and what it takes to maintain 'poetic control'. Although the speaker of the poem discusses loss (something normally associated with sadness, depression, negativity) the tone of this villanelle is not mournful or regretful. Rather it has an encouraging and seemily controlled tone (saying that a loss 'wasn't a disaster') like a victim who has now recovered, not forgetting past events, but not letting them dictate the future.

Using the format of a villanelle was therefore extremely effective for the author. The repetitive rhyming scheme invokes witty and technically difficult lines. For example

'Lose something everyday. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.'

This line skillfully capture the 'sing-songy' moral lessons of folk songs and rhymes 'an apple a day, keeps the doctor away', so keeps the light hearted nature of the poem.
The repeating lines emphesize how unavoidable loss is. As you read through the poem, you become accostomed to the repeating lines, the same way one becomes accustomed to loss.