Loss

The central theme of “One Art” is loss and the issue of how to manage and cope with it. As the title suggests, the speaker’s approach to managing loss is by imagining it to be an art form, and then practicing that art in order to master it. The speaker claims repeatedly that if one can master this art, then losing things will eventually be “no disaster” (3). The catalogue of losses described in the poem begins with mere misplaced objects, but grows to include less tangible losses, such as places, memories, hopes and dreams, and finally a loved one. Throughout the poem the speaker attempts to convince herself that she can survive her enormous loss of a loved one by practicing “the art of losing” (1) on smaller, less important things, and that if she does this, then losing things will not “bring disaster” (9).

The poem...