In the six stanza poem, "One Art," by Elizabeth Bishop, the poet points out that one ought to be almost indifferent to the loss of any given thing - and not upset - because some things actually want to be lost. It appears as though Bishop is suggesting that one ought to almost be happy for lost things for they must have wanted to be lost. Be it literally small and insignificant door keys or an entire continent and two rivers, which in Bishop's life are most likely symbolic of greater more significant losses. However, later on in the poem it is evident that this rule (of indifference) is not applicable in all cases, because although something may be ready to be lost the possessor of that thing may not be ready to lose it. .
The second and third stanzas present the loss of trivial things that can easily be replaced after being lost. Bishop mentions "lost door keys, the hour badly spent"(5) and while doing so she draws attention to the loss of small objects which is many a time accompanied by the loss of time itself, time wasted while looking for these small losses. As she brushes these small losses aside she then remarks "then practice losing farther, losing faster" (7) implying that one ought to begin to purposefully lose things as a matter of practice, and slowly improve by losing more and more, faster and faster. She states that the loss of "places, names, and where it was you meant to travel" (8-9) is not overly important, nor will they bring you disaster; for if one is to forget and lose trivial things such as the before mentioned it is not the end of the world. Largely, "Bishop's lines share her ironic tips for learning to lose and live with loss" (Candlish Millier, 122). And by practicing these everyday losses one learns to quickly and easily cope and move onward. .
Elizabeth Bishop continues with her notion of the art of losing when in the fourth and the fifth stanzas she examines the loss of the less trivial and accounts for the loss of more personal things.
