Magritte's Mnemosyne
I had bought the book thinking it sounded kind of dry, but that it would help me with research for my next book of poems. Well, it's positively captivating. The book is a collection of essays, all written by poets, that were given as talks at a Graywolf Forum. The poets are writing about memory and how they see it functioning in life, in perception, in cognition, in writing, in lots of things. What I love, though, is that each of these essays function like a keyhole through which you can spy these vibrant vignettes.
I love how poets write prose. They go about their essays, applying the structure they would to a long poem, so that connections between observations or episodes are not always apparent or easy. What this does for me, at least, is give my imagination a chance to get really invested in the text—I end up meandering over these instances and theories and musings that the poets have represented. Lovely!
Here's an excerpt from Sylvia Watanabe:
Nostalgia is memory looking off to one side. Any minute that thing you're not looking at might slide into view. Remember, my father says, or I say—but there is a place between now and before where we do not go. This is what we want to forget: Grandmother in the ambulance, Uncle empty of names.
