One Art Essay Questions

What does the poem's title refer to?

The "art" in the poem's title refers to the art of loss. The speaker spends the poem attempting to convince their audience (or perhaps themself) that loss can be honed, just like another art form. Motifs of skill and mastery stud the poem, offering a vivid set of instructions for a person hoping to master this curious art form. The "one" in the title lends itself to multiple interpretations and even puns. It can be understood as a reference to the all-encompassing nature of loss: because loss can be so devastating, mastery of it is the most important art form. But the word "one" is a homophone with the word "won," implying that this art form must be "won"—that is to say, earned—through practice, and, furthermore, that some degree of winning or success can be gleaned even amid great loss.

Discuss the theme of denial in "One Art."

The speaker in "One Art" denies the pain and upheaval that loss has caused them, and attempts to understate the impact that loss has had on them. The speaker's explicit stance is one of stoicism and emotional distance. Repeatedly, they assert that loss is "no disaster," and even that loss should be practiced regularly in order to make it easier to handle. Yet the speaker's uncertainty grows throughout the poem. Their early confidence falters, such that, by the end of the poem, they must willfully push themself to finish the final line. Furthermore, lines such as "I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster," with their even split between emotion and stoicism, echo the tension between these two poles in the speaker's own consciousness. The speaker repeatedly attempts to advocate for a stance that is, in fact, completely contradicted by their feelings.

Describe the poem's use of scale, speed, and vantage point.

The reader's physical relationship with and view of the images in "One Art" shift throughout the poem, moving from a minute scale and slow pace to a massive scale and fast pace, and then circling back to minuteness and slowness. These changes both echo and are influenced by the poem's mood and tone. As the poem begins with a conversational tone and domestic focus, the speaker dwells on small, domestic images: a key or a watch. As the speaker describes more dramatic losses, the images of the poem grow more dramatic and are introduced more rapidly. Now, images include rivers and continents, shifting the poem's scale from domestic to geographic. The poem's last stanzas, however, once again work on a slower and smaller scale. The final stanza dwells on only one loss, and moves slowly, making use of em-dashes and parentheses to create pauses. The images of the stanza—a person, or the sound of a voice—are small and familiar, transporting the reader back into a close, domestic space.

Discuss this poem as a villanelle. How does it adhere to the traditional structures of the villanelle form, and does it diverge from these structures in any way?

A villanelle is a poem consisting of nineteen lines, split into five tercets and one quatrain. Its first and third lines are repeated throughout in the form of refrains, ultimately concluding the poem's final quatrain. A villanelle follows an ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA rhyme scheme. In most respects, "One Art" is a traditional villanelle, and indeed is one of the most popular poems written in the form. It consists of five tercets and a quatrain, with two refrains drawn from its first stanza. One refrain is the repeated line "The Art of Losing Isn't Hard to Master." The other refrain shifts from stanza to stanza, though it always centers around the concept of loss not becoming a "disaster." It is this that makes "One Art" a slightly nontraditional instance of the villanelle form: rather than repeating refrains word-for-word, it makes use of minor alterations in each iteration of the second refrain. Its rhyme scheme, however, is that of a traditional villanelle, with an "-er" sound marking the A rhymes and an "-ent" sound marking the B rhymes.

Using three examples, discuss how Bishop uses punctuation in "One Art."

Bishop's use of punctuation gives readers a hint as to her speaker's emotions. While the explicit words of the poem may express one orientation—namely, wilful detachment—punctuation clues us into the speaker's pacing, tone, and level of expressiveness. One comma divides the poem's fifteenth line, splitting it into an emotionally expressive half ("I miss them") and a detached half ("but it wasn't a disaster"). The comma dividing the two clauses mimics the speaker's ambivalence and internal conflict. Another of the poem's notable punctuation marks is the em-dash that initiates the final stanza. Its placement at the beginning of not only a line but an entire stanza is noticeable, and it causes the reader to pause before continuing to the emotionally intense final stanza. This em-dash slows the poem's pace and prepares readers for a mood of increased seriousness, while simultaneously suggesting the speaker's hesitation. Finally, the parentheses that surround the phrase "the joking voice, a gesture/I love" suggest that the speaker is trying to hide or sequester these memories—perhaps because they wish to deny the grief associated with them.