'One Art'

Everybody loses. It is in human nature to be forgetful, to misplace things, to lack the responsibility to keep everything straight. In the poem “One Art”, Elizabeth Bishop illustrates that prioritizing is key to maintain hold of the things that truly important and let go of the things that are not.
Initially, Bishop discusses the loss of small items: keys, names and places. She urges us to “accept the fluster... the hour badly spent”, and get on with life. As the poem continues, however, the items grow progressively larger in size. In tercet five, Bishop uses hyperbole to exaggerate this growth and ma...