Analysis of the poems “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop and “The uses of sorrow by Mary Oliver
Poems are written to be understood of what the writer felt and what readers can reflect in it. “The Uses of Sorrow” by Mary Oliver was written after her long-time partner, Molly Malone Cook died in 2005. The poem was published in a volume called Thirst: poems. The poem touches on issues about dealing with the loss of a loved one and the quest to find spiritual meaning with that loss. The title “the uses of sorrow” is meaningful and important because the writer meant her readers to understand the real meaning of deep sorrow and how images from a dream influence our thought process and introspection.
The poem also reminds its readers that freedom from sorrow can be achieved when we learn to be kind to ourselves. We learn from our grief. It might be impossible to move on or completely heal from a loss, but we can always adapt and heal the emotional wounds. Ultimately, it is our decision to look at darkness as a gift.
“The uses of sorrow” uses imagery and symbolism as a literary device. For example, “Someone I love gave me a full box of darkness” is an imagery or symbolism about relationships with some dark secrets within it. These secrets are accepted and are part of the couple’s relationship. The last two lines, “It took me years to understand, that this too, was a gift” is a symbolism of sorrow as a gift to oneself. We are powerless and we do not have control over sorrow when it sneaks into our lives. We just must accept it like a gift, learn from it, and use it as we move forward.
Sorrow is sometimes seen as a punishment or a terrible experience that a person must undergo to. “The box full of darkness” also means that also symbolize hardships and trials in life. We sometimes ask why these things happen to us or try to understand why we deserve all these challenges in life. Despite being overwhelmed, we must continue. The poem inspires us do something when sorrows come into our lives and not just receive it as is and do nothing about them.
The poem “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop tells its readers to eliminate the pain of loss through levelling out everything that we lost in our lives; from small things, to people and becoming skilled at the fact of losing through the art of practice.
“The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is a disaster.” The writer upholds that loss is an inevitable human condition. In our lives, we lose significant and insignificant things and we should accept this as a natural part of our existence. We have to practice how to master it so as to remove any feelings or attachment that comes along with that loss. These points were repeated twice in the whole poem to emphasize them and to create dance words by repeating certain lines (repetition) at the same time as variations of the theme build up.
In the second stanza, “Lose something every day” means that we commonly lose two things: keys and time. The writer comforts the readers using a pause to help readers consider that the fluster we have when we lose our key is ridiculous. The writer suggested that it is not to hard to master losing things and losing these things is not a disaster. The emotionally build up in this stanza is withheld as the poem builds up. The poem reminds the reader that the poem has a tight form and it does not allow readers to lose its control; however, readers are allowed to be confused, flustered or agitated.
In the third and fourth stanza, the speaker changed from speaking the reader to using her own experiences. The fourth stanza emphasizes family time and the mother’s lost watch is a symbolism of the experience of the poet.
In the stanza, “Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel”, the writer provokes the readers to practice broadening he scope of the loss. Readers have to accept that people, places, plans and even time will escape in our heads.
The fifth stanza shows the whole structure of the poem. Its villanelle broke the tercet pattern and tight rhyme. It opens with a dash which signifies a casual tone. The little objects, thought and memory, houses, places and continents that form one big picture. “You” refers to the person lost and the irreplaceability of that lost individual.
Enjambment refers to the lines of the poem that does not end with a punctuation mark. This means that the sentences are continuous to the next lines of the poem. In “One Art”, this occurs in its stanza 1 – 4. This approach brings a smooth energy of the poem. The fifth stanza contains a comma and two periods which would make the reader pause and hesitate; whereas, the sixth stanza is also enjambed.
The writer tries to show how we deal of losing the person we love or value; instead of demonstrating the pain associated with that loss. We realize this when we accept and recognize the little things, we lose everyday and then we try to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. In life, we lose many things, some have bad consequences but not all are disastrous. We get through pain by helping ourselves.
The poem allows its readers to recognize that losing something or someone is a normal process and it happens in a day to day basis. By acknowledging this premise, it is in this way that we prevent ourselves from losing our minds when undergoing the process of losing something or someone important.
As a conclusion, we might take the poem as apathetic or unfeeling. However, the very essence of the poem is actually to give readers advices: losing is inevitable and the feelings of regret and sadness are associated with it. There are many uncertainties and disasters can happen any time. In life, we come out to certain dangerous situations. We should smile. Let us not take everything seriously and have a cool healthy detachment to what is happening around us at times. We also must appreciate the benefit of the hindsight.
