{"id":9572,"date":"2018-10-19T21:41:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-20T01:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=9572"},"modified":"2018-10-19T21:41:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-20T01:41:09","slug":"the-poem-thats-getting-me-through-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2018\/10\/19\/the-poem-thats-getting-me-through-midterms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Poem That’s Getting Me Through Midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the heat of midterm season, I\u2019m thinking about Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s poem <\/span>One Art<\/span><\/i>. As I procrastinate and study and go to events and feel the pulse of life racing madly everyday, I think about how I can\u2019t get yesterday back, or the day before that, or today will pass and so will tomorrow. The passage of time feels like a kind of destruction, a loss, a sacrifice that I must helplessly participate in. And Bishop\u2019s poem encapsulates this anxiety so eloquently and ironically in a poem; she writes: <\/span><\/p>\n

The art of losing isn\u2019t hard to master;<\/span>
\n<\/span>so many things seem filled with the intent<\/span>
\n<\/span>to be lost that their loss is no disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster<\/span>
\n<\/span>of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The art of losing isn\u2019t hard to master.<\/span><\/p>\n

It sneaks up on you, and it seems very profound in the beginning– initially, I thought the poem what about the burdens of materialism, or the issues with attaching yourself to human or tangible things (\u201cdoor keys\u201d, your \u201cmother\u2019s watch\u201d, \u201cthree loved houses\u201d). However, the poem progressively becomes more obsessive, spiraling into a chaotic frenzy of losing everything, of owning and loving and finding meaning in nothing:<\/span><\/p>\n

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:<\/span>
\n<\/span>places, and names, and where it was you meant<\/span>
\n<\/span>to travel. None of these will bring disaster.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I lost my mother\u2019s watch. And look! my last, or<\/span>
\n<\/span>next-to-last, of three loved houses went.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The art of losing isn\u2019t hard to master.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,<\/span>
\n<\/span>some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.<\/span>
\n<\/span>I miss them, but it wasn\u2019t a disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, it becomes something of an existentialist plea for meaning– this author is saying, to some degree, whether she knows it or not, <\/span>Nothing matters. And everything is fine, because nothing matters. <\/span><\/i>And finally, she drops the huge bomb at us in the end, the absolute sarcastic remark that seems to be hiding a deep inner turmoil: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture<\/span>
\n<\/span>I love) I shan\u2019t have lied. It\u2019s evident<\/span>
\n<\/span>the art of losing\u2019s not too hard to master<\/span>
\n<\/span>though it may look like (<\/span>Write<\/span><\/i> it!) like disaster.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this last paragraph reveals her true feelings. Bishop cares about what happens.<\/span><\/p>\n

The poet can\u2019t really fully will herself to believe that nothing matters because if she did, she wouldn\u2019t be feeling anything– but she <\/span>does <\/span><\/i>feel something. It doesn\u2019t matter that she uses a \u201cjoking voice, a gesture\u201d she loves, or that she painfully admonishes herself to \u201c<\/span>(Write <\/span><\/i>it<\/span>!)<\/span><\/i>\u201d– screw that! She cares about what happens, and even if everything in her life is lost, if everything and everyone that she loves is destroyed, she is silently, quietly counteracting that by <\/span>creating this poem<\/span><\/i>— something she can control. I cannot help but feel like there is particular double weight to the word \u201cart\u201d here– something that helps her lose and destroy, perhaps, but more importantly, helps her create. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the midst of academic frenzy and the crazy on-goings of everyday life, I\u2019m sometimes forced to forfeit and run on autopilot– wake up, do the stuff, scrabble to bed to get my seven hours, and repeat. But I care about what happens, I put love and passion into the work that I do, and that\u2019s what matters. <\/span><\/p>\n

This poem is a shout into the void, as all poems are, but beautiful– a declaration that <\/span>I was here. I existed. And I matter. <\/span><\/i>And perhaps that\u2019s something we need to remember this time of year. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Read Bishop\u2019s incredible poem here: https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/47536\/one-art)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the heat of midterm season, I\u2019m thinking about Elizabeth Bishop\u2019s poem One Art. As I procrastinate and study and go to events and feel the pulse of life racing madly everyday, I think about how I can\u2019t get yesterday back, or the day before that, or today will pass and so will tomorrow. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2194,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1174,1176,966,1175,281,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9573,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9572\/revisions\/9573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}