The Nature of Memory

Writing poems from facts that are often shadowy, broken, or have rough edges, makes me think about the nature of memory. I’ve been writing about the ancient world when events and ideas were passed along by song and story, and no one expected exact mirroring of what happened. Listeners seemed to know stories would shift depending on the tellers, and surprise was part of the pleasures.

But since cameras and recording devices were invented, police reports and courtrooms are subject to rigorous standards, it seems that fact as truth has become the standard way to view the world. Do we expect memory to be a science, the same every time for each one of us? Or are we content with some slippage? Are our minds naturally drawn to myth and shape shifting, or is the advance of civilization based on finding consensus? Children are often allowed fantasy, but growing up is often defined as leaving imagination behind or in a special corner.

Memory loves objects like charm bracelets, handed-down teapots, quilts, old dolls or stuffed animals that hold something through time, but also let it change. Memory doesn’t work chronologically. She’s charmed by facts, but not naturally fact-checking. Storytelling and poetry may be closer to memory than journalism, even when we write from history. We’re not just after what happened, but want to draw connections with metaphors, or set up echoes of images as well as sounds, stitch together what first seems disparate. Sometimes we’re trying to blend what happened with what could have happened. Trying to show what was real, as an artist may want to draw a bird that’s anatomically correct, but then letting go to pure whim, moving away from realism just far enough so that a bird on the page can fly.

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