Poetry Friday is hosted today by Myra, Fats and Iphigene at Gathering Books.
Elizabeth Bishop was a respected, but an obscure poet until after her death in 1979. According to The Poetry Foundation “her reputation has grown to the point that many critics, like Larry Rohter in the New York Times, have referred to her as ‘one of the most important American poets’ of the twentieth century. Bishop was a perfectionist who did not write prolifically, preferring instead to spend long periods of time polishing her work. She published only 101 poems during her lifetime.” Yet in that lifetime, she won the Pulitzer Prize for North And South, and the National Book Award for The Complete Poems. This site also states “her reputation increased greatly in the years just prior to her death, particularly after the 1976 publication of Geography III and her winning of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.”
Although some sites I read seemed to believe this poem by Elizabeth Bishop is about divorce or separation, when reading it, I believe the loss could be different things that happen in one’s life. Bishop appears to believe that this grief of loss takes practice, and perhaps then one might accept it. Like all poems, it speaks to each reader personally.
One Art
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.
and you can read the rest here at Poets.org, as well as find other poems by Elizabeth Bishop.
