Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" is a part-autobiographical poem reflecting on the losses that the poet encountered throughout her lifetime. The nineteen-line poem is written in villanelle form and is divided into six stanzas. The poet considers the act of losing as an "art"—a craft to be practiced and mastered. She goes on to explain the things she has lost throughout the poem, such as door keys, her mother’s watch, and her home.
In the early stages of life, Bishop lost her father. Later her mother had a nervous breakdown and she lost her too. In adulthood, she lost her partner to suicide. The poem contains her reflections on such losses, as well as a determination to withstand them along with further losses that she may experience later in life.
The "art" that the poet is talking about is the art of facing demise, loss, defeat, and failure. This "art of losing" includes the personal and material losses of the speaker. She suggests that everyone loses things, and as with any other "art," one can become better at dealing with loss. A tone of irony and the use of repetition, however, may suggest that she is in fact repressing the more powerful emotional impact the losses have indeed had on her.
