Formalist Criticism of the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop

Can one ever practice losing enough to master it? Is it possible to become a master at losing such as an artist can become a master painter, writer, or sculptor? The speaker in the poem "One Art" presents this question and provides an answer. The poem is an illustration of a common human affliction--grief and regret caused by the loss of another human. Through the use of value progression and the interweaving of denotative and …

…reaction has a major impact upon the meaning of the poem. Several friends of mine read this poem. The impact upon all of them was, to say the least, profound. Anyone who reads it has either experience a long-term loss of a person such as long-term illness resulting in death or can empathize with the concept. I think that formalism, by removing the emotional element of the reader, greatly diminishes the power of the poem.