Hello and welcome back to The Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by Elizabeth Bishop, who I know I recently read, but this is a poem that I really love,

and it's a form that I don't believe I have ever read before here on the show.

Elizabeth Bishop, as you might recall, lived from 1911 to 1979, and she was an American poet and short

story writer.

She was a consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress in the late 40s, and then she won the Pulitzer

Prize in 1956, the National Book Award in 1970, and she was the

recipient of the Noistadt International Prize for Literature in 1976. Her poem that I'm going to

read today is called One Art, and it is from a collection called a Geography 3. I'll go ahead and read it

first and then give you a few comments, particularly about the form and the structure of this poem, which is a form that is perhaps my favorite.

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 every day, except the fluster of lost orkeys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, 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 missed them, but it wasn't a disaster.

Even losing you, a joking voice, a gesture I love.

I shan't have lied.

It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master,

...