The art of losing isnt hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isnt 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 mothers watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isnt hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasnt a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shant have lied. Its evident
the art of losings not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. Questions:
Shes giving us directions in how to practice and master the art of loss. But is she convincing that loss is NOT hard to master if we just practice? (How are the other things lost different from the last in her list of losses? Do the phrase in parentheses and the ending, like disaster, suggest her state of mind on her loss of whoever you is?) If you want, also describe how and why a poem like this one might help someone cope with a loss
Poem 2:
Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967, One Perfect Rose
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet–
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose. Questions:
So, looking at the simple structure, the rhymes, the images and the tone, elaborate on how we are to read this speaker: who is this person? Is she being funny? Is she both appreciative and tired of the impracticalities of traditional romantic gestures? Or is she cravenly materialistic, almost rudely upending an expectation of traditional romance? Does the poem more strongly support one, or does it support both?Poem 3:
Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012, Living in Sin
She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman’s tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night’s cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own—
envoy from some village in the moldings . . .
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.Questions: . Richard writes of Living in Sin that the poem presents alternate views of the studio apartment that reflect alternate views of the relationship. The woman identifies multiple details and sees some of the less than desirable settings that have come about the living space. The man in contrast is quite detached and promptly leaves the studio. He describes the relationship as Not ideal, kind of messy, but it works, and its what they have. To consider his take on the poem, look at the images to see what they suggest about this relationshipwhats wrong with it, from the speakers perspective? What does she want, but no longer expect, from her live-in partner? What seems to have changed (in the speakers perspective) since they moved in together? Adrienne Rich is playing with the phrase that used to apply to people living together without marriagebut what is the sin this couple is living in?
