Author Joseph Taglieber sums up Bishop’s poem as something “Most of us can identify with trying to put on brave faces regarding loss; yet actually mastering losing is another matter entirely. Bishop’s faltering speaker represents human nature’s inner struggle with making art out of our struggles.”
Step One: Select two losses Bishop describes in her poem and read Frankel’s article After studying “One Art,” select two losses described in the poem. Then, read Joseph Frankel’s article and collect what he has to say about these losses.
Frankel’s “Coming to Terms with Loss in Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’” article is on
Step Two: Illustrate and analyze the two losses with personal experiences Discuss what Frankel says about the loss elements you’ve selected and relate them to your own experiences. You may approach this in any way that works for your thinking – the anecdote can be lighthearted or “deep”; use material you are comfortable writing about.
Example: When I was 18-years-old I bought a used motorcycle against my parent’s wishes; they were worried I would get hurt. Shortly after getting the bike I was in a minor accident that only I knew about. I suffered a bruised elbow, a burn on my calf from the bike’s piping, and some road rash – normal injuries for a motorcyclist – but I was terrified to ride again. A few days after the accident I lost the cycle’s only ignition key.
Frankel writes that “Bishop’s speaker tries to convince herself that loss is a level playing field: House keys and wasted time are on par with exlovers and lost childhood homes.” Due to my terror about getting on the bike again, the lost key gained enormous importance. To me it symbolized movement into adulthood and claiming success despite what my parent’s thought; therefore, both the accident and loss of the key [I ended up selling the motorcycle with the excuse that the key was too expensive to replace. . .]
Step Three: Bring it all together through analysis of Bishop’s final phrase, “Write it!” Bishop closes her poem with the rather curious phrase “Write it!” Your task is to bring together what you’ve written about in the body paragraphs and present an idea(s) about what the conclusion means to you as a writer and reader.
Example: The loss of the key and therefore the motorcycle is literally written on my body as a burn scar on my calf, a scar that also functions as marking me as an adult . . .