In Competition No. 2633 you were invited to submit a poem lamenting the loss of a small but important object.
As I dart around like a headless chicken attempting to track down the latest small but seemingly crucial missing item, the words of ‘One Art’, Elizabeth Bishop’s powerfully understated villanelle, ring in my ears:
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…
These flurries of panic seem to punctuate my day with increasing regularity as time passes but to judge by your entries I am not alone. Keys, contact lenses, remote control and glasses (they’re on your head!) all conspire to absent themselves at the most inconvenient moment on a maddeningly regular basis.
Appreciative nods to Jayne Osborn, Shirley Curran, Josephine Boyle, Martin Woodhead, Roger Theobald and P.C.
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