One Art
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.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
-Elizabeth Bishop
Poem of the Month 
What an intriguing way to look at loss and disaster. Everything seems an upset to me if it doesn’t go smoothly so there is a lesson to be learned here by me.
absolutely true,learned from young age to let go,sometimes thats better to cope than hanging on.the good side of it you can carry on easier,the bad side its hard to hold on to anything,for u always will lose it.
hmm…that’s not quite the way it’s usually read. if you care to do so, read it again, slowly, especially the last two lines.
bishop isn’t saying that one can let go and learn to deal with loss. she’s saying exactly the opposite – that one often can’t.
it’s a very sad poem indeed. she wrote it after the suicide of a close friend. there is no defense against loss.
Update: I should say, not close friend, but lover whom she had been unfaithful to, and had recently separated from after 15 years.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop (the ‘friend’ is the Brazilian socialite Soares who killed herself after Bishop broke off the relationship).