“Poetry, like love, is something we never truly say goodbye to.”

-Robert Browning

I just made that quote up, but I’m sure Bobby Browning would agree. National Poetry Month may be officially over, but our appreciation for poetry cannot be curbed because of a silly date on a calendar. To extend your poetry fix, check out this fantastic GalleyCat interview with The Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry authors Kathryn & Ross Petras.

April may be the cruelest month, but it’s also National Poetry Month. In honor of the month that’s almost lost and gone, let’s celebrate the art of losing before it’s too late:

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

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:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.