One Art

This is a villanelle. It is composed of five tercets and ends with a quatrain. The first and third line of the first stanza then alternate the ending lines of the next 4 stanzas, and end with a couplet in the final quatrain. This is a rigid, controlled poetic form. Using this poetic device provides the control the speaker holds over the art of losing. Losing is simply another art to master: start out slowly with losing little things, and then move to bigger and more important things. The final line shows the loss of control. If the final word is not written, the villanelle is not complete, the control is lost. Wouldn't losing control, then, be the ultimate achievement in the art of losing?