Poetry is a form of expression that dates back to BC era and continued to remain popular through modern times. Generally people interpreted poems differently, however this caused confusion upon deciding the subject or meaning of the poem. Presently, people who analyze all genres of poetry have come up with different forms of evaluation to combat any perceptive confusion. To date, the newest form of criticism is the formalist point of viewing. As a formalist reviewer, one studies the text of a poem without taking in account anything else. Such as, the time which the poem was work was written in and the influences that inspired the writer are all irrelevant. .
While looking at any literally works as a formalist critic, one should be able to find complexities, tensions, ironies, paradoxes and others. For instance, within One Art by Elizabeth Bishop, one can find an example of both a complexity and tension. Complexity can be found when one considers Bishop's wording on line fifteen, "I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster." Given that she repeats the likeliness 'it wasn't a disaster' and 'losing isn't hard to master,' one can suspect despite her nonchalant attitude to be a ruse. Line fifteen if the only hint that her composed and laid back attitude thus far, concerning losing things like her mother's watch, was in fact emotionally damaging. This mask she's worn in the beginning of the poem cracks as her emotion seeps into her poetry. Here, tension can be found at the last line where she writes, "though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." This outburst she's put in parentheses seems as though she is not only convincing the reader, losing things aren't hard to master, but herself.
Furthermore, as a formalist one must find the unifying component within the work that also resolves any ambiguity the reader may have. In One Art, the confusion may be caused by lines thirteen and fourteen, "I lost two cities, lovely ones.