In "The Man-Moth" there is a sense of outcast, failure and distrust issues that arise. "Man" is scared to surface into the public, being surrounded by failure and those outside his world. Bishop takes us into the Man-Moth's world of making this journey to the surface and being among people and his first hand reaction. Readers also see that though time and life are moving forward the Man-Moth faces backwards on the subway, so not to know what lies ahead.
Then he returns
to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,
he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains
fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.
The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way
and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,
without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.
He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.
One-Art was a rather easy read. It was complex but simple. Bishop opens with, "The art of losing isn't hard to master;" this is true. All sorts of things are lost everyday. Bishop mentions small things to big things. However, no matter what is lost it is not a disaster. I took from this poem a feeling of contentment that no matter what we may lose in our lives that in the end we must have hope. We must expect that loss will come, but know that it doesn't have to end in disaster.
"One Art" By Elizabeth Bishop from Walter on Vimeo.
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