Friday, February 14, 2014

The art (?) of forgetting

Something I read recently put me in mind of a line from Elizabeth Bishop's poem "One Art."  Though I didn't remember the poem's title (and wasn't entirely sure about the author either), I did remember the key line -- except for one crucial word. What I remembered was "the art of ... isn't hard to master."  I had to look up the poem for the missing word. The line is, of course, "the art of losing isn't hard to master."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have just reminded me of a dream about Bishop. I was in the checkout line at a store, and was surprised to see they had a book of hers for sale by the register; I was recalling my being put off of her by a bad experience in honors Eng Comp I (that much is true), and thinking I should give her another go, but then I realized that the volume was actually collected prose, not poetry.

Yes, I have really dull dreams.

LFC said...

I rarely remember my dreams -- and when I do remember them I usually then forget them after a couple of days. (There are one or two exceptions.)

So I'm impressed you remember this one, and in such detail.