On being asked by an interviewer what one quality every poem should have Elizabeth Bishop replied, “Surprise. The subject and the language which conveys it should surprise you. You should be surprised at seeing something new and strangely alive.”
Quoted by @JohnMcCullough_ on Twitter
A good poem, in my opinion, is “strangely alive.” It gains that quality by a mixture of inspiration, craft, form and a myriad of decisions large and small.
The American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) is widely quoted and commended for the “painterly quality” of her work and her tendency to, “revise and revise.” She remains hugely influential.
Find bio at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-bishop
Elizabeth Bishop’s second draft of One Art
This is an excerpt from the published version, I don’t have rights to share the whole thing
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:
See the full poem here
An overview of her work can be found at
A blog post by Anne Enith Cooper
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