From The Decades-Old Classic That Became the Ultimate Pandemic Poem – Brain Pickings
It is the only villanelle Bishop ever wrote. She surprised even herself. A spare and careful poet who published very few and very meticulous poems, she composed it with astonishing rapidity, feeling that it was “like writing a letter,” redrafting and retitling it over and over.
“How to Lose Things.”
“The Gift of Losing Things.”
“The Art of Losing Things.”
And finally, fifteen drafts later, “One Art.”
“One Art” is one of my favorite poems. One of the few poems I know by heart.
And it is the poem I am most likely to mention at work. I mention it all the time. I even have a set of slides ready, for easy insertion into a deck.
In part because you can visit her drafts of the poem. In part, because it is a villanelle.
I talk about productions at work. And I mean “productions” as the things we publish. I mean these as a form of art. And I believe these productions happen at the place where creativity is bound by constraints then polished by craft and put into a form that allows someone who did not participate in the making to engage.
“One Art” read aloud in a work context – the drafts and changed lines on the slides – is such a lovely example of what we can aspire to with productions.
P.S. I tried to work in another Bishop poem I love. I couldn't quite and so add it here: “Arrival at Santos”