Have you lost anything yet?

Elizabeth Bishop has gone on record to say that the ‘art of losing isn’t hard to master’. She says we get used to losing things so that after a time any loss ceases to matter.

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…

Something to it. And even if there isn’t, I think it might be worth a try. After all, isn’t it every other day we lose something or the other – a favourite pen, headphones, our mind, a friend, our soul.

I hear that the poetry of loss is a genre unto itself and there are many poets who've mourned the loss of something or another. What appeals to me is the theme's immediate poignancy - it's implications of tragedy. 

Bishop’s ‘One Art’ goes from losing a small thing like the door keys to bigger things like a continent (which I think is used as a metaphor, for what I don't know) and a friend. And the irony is that what she’s really trying to say in the end (according to experts who parse poems and things like that) is that we almost NEVER get used to losing things. We merely forget perhaps. This is evident in the last verse of her poem (where she’s grieving the loss of a loved one) – where she goes from “isn’t hard” to “not too hard”.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Still, I find it a good idea to take this perspective. After all, what have we got to lose?