“One Art,” by Elizabeth Bishop, and the Rarity of Experience

Abstract

This article reflects on the experience of loss through Elizabeth Bishop’s poem One Art, connecting its poetic construction with Jorge Larrosa Bondía’s reflections on experience in contemporary life. Through an interpretative reading of the poem, loss is discussed not merely as an event, but as an experience capable of affecting, transforming, and leaving marks on the subject. Repetition, rhythm, and poetic language are understood as ways of elaborating lived experience and resisting acceleration, information overload, and the superficiality of contemporary relationships. The article argues that experience requires time, attention, silence, and openness to being affected, conditions that have become increasingly rare in everyday life. It concludes that Bishop’s poetry offers an ethical and aesthetic reflection on the capacity to remain with loss and to transform what happens to us into experience and narrative.