The Mutability of Memory

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Mary Kendall

All of us have memories. Good memories. Bad memories. Memories we love to revisit over and over. Memories we push far back, hoping they will disappear. Some memories are vivid, while others are dreamy and vague. A few are very, very real as if they just happened, but others feel as if they stories that happened to someone else rather than us.

Memories can be haunting. Memories can be triggered by all sorts of things—from a taste that evokes brilliant memories from early childhood to a scent of burning leaves that reminds us of an autumn long gone.

It began with a prompt in March 2014 in Poets Online to use a first line from an Emily Dickinson poem as our own poem title and then to write a new poem. This was one of my favorite prompts because it asked me to do something I had never considered. I do read Emily Dickinson’s poetry from time to time. I puzzle over her words and meanings. I spend a fair amount of time thinking about what she meant and how she did it. She never ceases to amaze me or probably any of her readers. To borrow a first line from her seemed a bit like stealing something sacred. And then the fun began–going through all of her first lines (which, of course, have also become the titles of her otherwise untitled poems)–and selecting one to work with. The prompt suggested we not read (or reread if we had read the poem a while back) Emily Dickinson’s version until our own version was complete. Fair enough.

After going through the list of first lines of Dickinson, I had to eliminate all those I knew. That meant excluding some wonderful poems I knew and loved. It also meant I had to find a poem that was unknown to me. Oddly enough the one I ended up with is a well-known poem of hers, but I couldn’t remember reading it (failure of memory on my part perhaps?), so I chose it. I love this line. “The Past is Such a Curious Creature.” Don’t you love the very idea of it, calling the past a curious creature, personification with such crisp alliteration?

Following the instructions, I did some thinking of what the line meant to me, what it brought forward. That’s how poets work. It can be rather vague to those who don’t write, but all poets know that a simple line can bring to life so many things. A poem comes from someplace deep inside, a place we’d love to explore but we only get glimpses of it. It took me a while to write the poem and to rewrite it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to submit it for quite some time. I even tested out a few other lines as prompts, but I returned to this irresistible line that Dickinson wrote. Here is the poem I finished and submitted. When the final poems were published, it was fun to read all of them. The other writers did a wonderful job. Some wrote in a style resembling hers. A few wrote in rhyme. I did none of that. Mine was in free verse, dictated only by the ideas and images that spilled out.

My poem:

THE PAST IS SUCH A CURIOUS CREATURE (Line taken from Dickinson’s Poem CXXVII)

The past is such a curious creature
capable of creating such marvelous lies
that we begin to believe as we hear them
said again and again, forgetting that
there are those who love to distort
the truth and let it spill out and break
into brittle bits & pieces that are left
on the street to be kicked and crushed
until the shards are too small to see.

The past writes a story of its own choosing.
Its pen might be inked in faulty memory;
its paper might be marked in things that
did happen as well as those that did not.

This story is examined with the lens
of exaggeration and embellishment
until the tale that remains
is now so embedded in our minds
that we can no longer know
what was real and what was not.

And now for the inspiration piece, the poem written by Miss Dickinson:

THE PAST IS SUCH A CURIOUS CREATURE (Poem CXXVII)
by Emily Dickinson (Complete Poems, 1924).

Part One: Life CXXVIII

The Past is such a curious creature
To look her in the face,
A transport may receipt us
Or a Disgrace.

.
Unarmed if any meet her,
I charge him fly!
Her faded ammunition
Might yet reply!

Although the prompt suggested reading the original poem after our own was nearly complete and then comparing where we were going, I opted to read Emily Dickinson’s only after my poem was more or less complete.

In Emily Dickinson’s poem, her personification of the past as a feminine being is a surprise. Then she tells us that as we remember the past, it might reveal a hidden delight or a remembrance of something disgraceful or shameful. That said, she moves to the second stanza and urges the reader to be aware that if the past memories are ignored, there might be consequences that would take us with surprising force. How true. Memories that are suppressed can and just might tumble out to reveal an unfathomable nightmare. Or more.

My own poem chose a different path. It opted for examining the past by questioning the mutability of memory. Is the past always the past? Is it constant? Or is its story one that changes in the retelling and perspective of the storyteller? My point of view came arose from the self-examination of a few haunting memories from my own early childhood. These particular memories were negative, but they were mine as I perceived them.

In asking one of my sisters about her perception of these same events, her memory was quite different from my own. So, which was true? Either one? Both? True for her, and true for me, even with different observations and conclusions? I spent a long time trying to figure it out but was unable to do so. My past. Her past. Our past. Memory can change and distort with time, age, experiences, contemplation, It does present some good leads for poems, but it does not answer the question as to what that unhappy childhood memory really was all about.

Poetry allows us to raise questions and to examine possibilities. It is not psychotherapy, nor is it scientific. What it does do is give the poet a way to explore personal stories and experiences and to turn them into something that goes far beyond the individual self. It offers each reader a chance to follow along and even to join in, adding their own experiences and memories into the mix.

What do YOU think about the mutability of memory? Can we ever answer all of the questions we have about the past?
.

.
(Note: part of this posting appeared on my other blog, Bedford Square +2)

Forget Me Not…

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Mary Kendall

Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone

Don’t forget me when I’m gone.
I’ll be there thinking about you.

Don’t forget me in my silence.
I’ll bring you back a poem.

Don’t forget me when you’re sad.
I’ll be ready to understand your tears.

Don’t forget me when life is good.
I’ll be happy to laugh along with you.

Don’t forget me if the glass breaks.
I’ll be there to sweep up the shards.

Don’t forget me when you doubt.
I’ll listen to your words spill out.

Don’t forget me in the dark.
I’ll bring you a small violet star.

Don’t forget me when I leave.
I’ll return. I always will

Forget-Me-Not, photograph by Flowers HD.com

Burnt Toast

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Mary Kendall

Marcel Proust had his fragrant shell-shaped madeleine and linden flower tea. I have my burnt toast.

How often have you found that a simple smell can carry you back in time or far away? It happens to all of us, the sense of smell being strongly linked to evoking memories. Scientists can now prove this through brain scans, but artists and psychiatrists have long noted how taste and smell work with long-past memories far more than other senses. Proust says it so eloquently:

“When from a long distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”

For Proust, it wasn’t simply the beautiful shape of the madeleine, but the smell and taste of the madeline dipped in the linden flower tea that brought back a flood of memories.

The other morning as I waited for two eggs to boil, I made some toast. It was lovely whole grain bread bought in a farmer’s market here in London. I cut the slice a bit unevenly, and I think it was this that caused the bread to stay down too long in the toaster. I smelled it before I noticed the smoke. The bread was burnt. Feeling annoyed that I hadn’t caught this in time, I grabbed a knife and began to scrape the charred layer from the toast. You can guess where I am going with this, can’t you? In a split second or two a long forgotten memory came flooding back from my early childhood. The poem, “Burnt Toast” was written later in the week. Interestingly, as I wrote each draft, I imagined the smell of the burnt toast over and over.

burning toast

Burnt Toast

I burnt the toast.
The butter knife
rasped across
the too dark toast.
Sooty crumbs
flurried down
into the sink,
and the smell
of blackened bread
brought back memories
of momma doing this,
scraping the bad away.

Hazel eyes twinkling,
she’d tell us the burnt part
would whiten our smiles,
and we’d always laugh
at this silly joke,
never quite sure
if it might not be true.

But one lost slice
was one less meal,
and she was unwavering.
We would never
know the hunger
that hovered close by.

Even to this day,
I have a strange fondness
for slightly charred bits of food,
my mother always standing there,
at the edges of my memory.

burnt_toast430x300

A Simple Love Poem

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Mary Kendall

Since my last posting, my husband and I have flown across the Atlantic and are settling into the faculty flat in Winston House, Bedford Square, London. Quite a beautiful place to live for four months ago. Some of my readers know all about this because they followed my travel blog (Bedford Square + 2), which will continue on a non-Word Press platform. If you are curious, you can find it through this link: http://marykendall2.blogspot.co.uk

We lived here two years ago, spending the spring term and following it with five weeks on the continent. This time ’round we will be here for four months. The flight was, for once, not too bad way back in coach class. The pilot surprised us all by taking off exactly on time and arriving at Heathrow Airport 50 minutes early. For real.

Jet-lag is something that seems to get worse with age, and both of us fell fast asleep at 10 pm on New Year’s Eve. At the stroke of midnight we both woke to what sounded like an awful ruckus. It took only a few seconds to figure out it was the fireworks along the Thames. From our windows we couldn’t see the fireworks directly. What we did see was the sky turning beautiful shades of pink, green, purple, white…and flashes of sparkling white rockets. By sticking my head out the window I figured out that I could see some of the fireworks and those were dazzling enough to me in my exhausted state.

(we didn’t see this from our window, but the sky was quite similar)

After about 12 minutes of this sound and light show in this ancient city, my husband quickly fell back to sleep while I remained wide awake for an hour. It gave me some quiet time to make a cup of tea, sit down in the darkened living area and think about our many visits to the UK and to London in particular.

Our first trip to London and England was back in 1977 when we were young and energetic enough to walk absolutely everywhere. Another summer we spent about a month in London following a month in Oxford where R. did research, and I enjoyed exploring parks, museums, shops, streets. In 1989, we brought the first group of students over on this Honors London program sponsored by my husband’s university. We lived in Hampstead that year, and we loved it. Our son was in nursery school, so I made friends of some spectacular women. The Heath was there for daily walks and our local library was next door to the Keats house. After we checked out our books, my little son and I would go sit in the garden of the Keats House and read stories together. It didn’t ever get better than that for me. Sometimes simple acts or simple gestures are better than anything.

In 2013, we returned to London and were housed in beautiful Winston House that now is home for this London Honors program. It was a very wonderful time for us and for the students. We’ve kept in touch with many of them. And now, in 2015, we are unexpectedly back again for four months. A new group of students will arrive on January 10th, and the term will have begun.

I will continue my travel blog if anyone is interested. Since this blog is devoted to my poetry writing practice, I thought I’d begin the new year with an old poem. I published it in 2013 in my Bedford Square + 2 blog as a Valentine’s gift to my husband. Since his teaching and research have given us both so many wonderful stays in this beautiful country, I’d like to share a very simple love poem I wrote for him. Love is not tied to a single day or week or year, and sometimes simple things like strolling in a beautiful place help you reaffirm your love and relationship.

If you might like to listen to me reading the poem, simply click on the link below. It takes a few seconds to begin.

Taking Your Arm

I took your arm for the first time in so many years.
Was it the cold damp air that made me reach out?
Was it the need to feel safe in the noisy city streets?

Slipping my fingers into the crook of your arm,
the warmth of your soft wool coat was comforting.
I felt grounded and balanced by your strength.

Through the busy London streets we walked,
much of it in silence, a silence built on
knowing that words aren’t always necessary.

I glanced down at our booted feet. Our steps
kept time, first left, then right, left, then right,
finding the rhythm of these unknown streets.

For RDK, London, February 14, 2013
Originally published on Bedford Square + 2
http://marykendall2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-simple-valentine-for-one-i-love.html

Due North: A Winter Poem

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Mary Kendall

There are nights in the winter
once the leaves have fallen away,
when sometimes I wake in the dark,
hearing the distant, plaintive sound

of a single train a few miles away
as it crosses over a country road
or maybe it’s to warn off deer
that pause too long on the track.

The train travels due north,
and in the blackness of the night
the train’s dark sounding
brings back fragmented images
of my childhood life up north.

North, where winter’s silver skies
are layered in clouds most
of the year, and where snow
begins to fall early and deep.

North, where my family lived
in the rust belt of Lake Erie,
where strong winds raced across
the lake with bone-chilling cold.

The lake effect meant snowstorms
that went on for hours, even days
on end. Times when all of us gathered
together happily, knowing school
would be cancelled the next day.
Night was peaceful back then.

In the morning, we’d make our
way through the thigh high snow
and help shovel the walk, leaving
tall tunnels of snow on either side.

Our boots would crunch on frozen
snow, fingers painfully cold, but
that never stopped us from a snowball
fight or playing king of the mountain,
or sledding, tumbling, rolling in snow,

or making lovely snow angels
all over the yard. Those were the
carefree days of childhood, when
we didn’t worry about time or the
future or much of anything.

And for a while the thick snow
continued to fall, covering the tracks
of cars, birds and anything else
that dared to wander outside
on those interminable winter days.

Now, no longer in the north,
I lie in bed remembering such
simple times, times of being together
as we coasted down the snow hills,
all six of us tucked in tightly together

until halfway down when the toboggan
shifted and just after the pull to the left,
we capsized, all of us scattered down the hill,
laughter ringing out so loud as we fell,
each of us ready to give it a go again.

Tobagganing in the Snow

My thanks to the photographer, Iosatel, for use of the photograph, Due North, which appeared on his blog, The Obvious and the Hidden, 03/11/2014 on WordPress: http://theobviousandhidden.com/2014/11/03/due-north/

Icarus II (Poetry and Myth)

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Mary Kendall

If you care to listen to me read the poem, just click on the link below and wait a few seconds for it to begin:

Icarus II

The hardest part was letting you go,
knowing that once you sailed so high
it would be impossible not to try again.

With each pass you made, you soared
higher, more effortlessly; sweet-scented
beeswax noticeable as the air grew warmer.

Arms outstretched as if embracing the sun,
you changed course and flew even closer
before you shifted abruptly, a quick turning

of wings, now fighting the unexpected wind
with young muscles tensed and determined
to hold the course.

The descent was swift.
A feather fell
and then another.

A Poet in Time

One Poet's Writing Practice: Poems by Mary Kendall

Category Archives: memory

The Mutability of Memory

Forget Me Not…

Burnt Toast

A Simple Love Poem

Due North: A Winter Poem

Icarus II (Poetry and Myth)

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