Elizabeth Bishop (8 February 1911 – 6 October 1979 / Worcester, Massachusetts)

This poem is so good with its somewhat ironic subject. Not many people consider losing an 'art' Elizabeth Bishop shows how she does not truly believe that losing 'isn't hard to master' with various gives, some of the more obvious ones including the '(Write it!) ' and the slant rhymes at the end of lines 4 and 16. Also, the fact that there is one more disaster than master (if you count them) unbalances the structure, and shows that losing that someone, be it lover or friend, was truly a disaster that she has yet to master.
Sorry for analyzing a bit too much, I'm doing this for practice =P

I just adore this poem its amazing capturing and fulfiling :) she's my new idol and i dont even know anything about her hehe

Amy Hayden... do not quote from films when critiquing a poem. Specifically in this case from 'In Her Shoes'.
It's not doing you any favours.

I most deffinately have to agree with Rashad, the poem is about loosing love, but not the love of a lover. At first she talks about loosing real things like keys and a watch, but then she talks about loosing things such as a continent, she's getting grandiose, Bishop is trying to make it seam like it doesnt matter, her tone is detached, she wants to sound detached becuse she knows deep down how bad it's going to feel to loose. but it isnt a lover that she's loosing it's a friend, friendship. I absolutely love this poem! ! ! ! !

The author tries very hard to detach herself from her pain – a pain so horrible in the end, it is compared constantly to “disaster”; albeit, through barely discernable and subtle skepticism. In shrugging off her losses, she attempts to justify what she hopes will bring her peace – taking loss to an art form. This inhuman feat can never be successfully accomplished – among mere mortals anyway. “Even losing you, ” she says, is obviously the most unbearable of losses – so much so she cannot even she cannot bring herself to write the word and so it is through parenthetic pause (Write it) she once again feels the gravity of her loss – again the word “disaster”.

Note also that in the first three stanzas she repeats:

The art of losing is not hard to master.

When it comes to losing the friend or lover that statement becomes:

The art of losing is not too hard to master.

To me, this puts the reader on notice that if it we were to simply remove the word “not”, the true meaning of the poem is revealed. When one tries to hard to convince me of something, they are usually fooling themselves.

One of her greatest and most influential poems. The last line's parenthetic exclamation redeems the ironic stance on loss (as if the art of losing was easy to master) . It says, with a lump in the throat, but full resolve, 'get on with your life! '
Two other great poems: The Moose, The Fish

One ARTIST! ! ......magnificent work....as always.....! !

Hi. I dont speak english very well, but I'll try to say something about the great poetry.
I belived that the subject is, learn lose things, love, friends, because this situations not stop the life, but this situations give to us a new chance for a new life step, when you really learn to lose everything, and is it not a desaster for you, you grow up inside, your spirit is grow up, and the life is a hole gift, not a desaster

Did you undestend what im trying to say?

I agree with Rashad Mccloud. The narrator seems to be more trying to convince herself that losing something is easy and that after something is lost it should be forgotten. But as it turns out in the last stanza she lost a friend which was harder on her than she lets on.

I think that the subject of the poem is losing per se examined on a number of levels.

The form is quite interesting - a modified Villanelle. The second repeated line is changed on each repetition.