Reading for learning English "One art" by Elizabeth Bishop (+ video)

What do you think about the poem you've just heard? 

I'm sure you were charmed with it !

This stunning poem was written by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979).She  is one of America’s greatest poets, and she is also considered  one of the most telented English-language poets of the twentieth century.  Her  poems show different sides of life, they combine humor and sadness, pain and acceptance.

 She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Wht is more, Bishop won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award as well as two Guggenheim Fellowships and an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant. In 1976, she became the first woman to receive the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and remains the only American to be awarded that prize.

The poem we are going to read today is an incredible example of expression of strong feelings and emotions in some short lines. So, let's start reading!

"One art" by Elizabeth Bishop

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.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- 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.