Introductions and Billy Collins

Under the inspiration of my good friend and progenitor Mighty Toy Cannon, I've decided to stake my claim on this massive information dump we call the Internet and to do so, not by producing my own content, but by gathering and re-presenting the little bits of culture likely to get lost down the memory chute. The topic for this blog will be poetry: every now and then, when the mood strikes me, I'll post some poem I've come across and enjoyed. I'll try to stay away from the too-famous, but I will include some of the major authors, if I think the work isn't too tired. I may comment, but it'll probably be brief. (Yeah, the "Critical" in the title is a lie. I just like the word.) I may eventually work into a "New poems every Monday and Thursday" format or something, but I won't make any promises.

That said, let's get to the poetry. The "memory chute" line actually pertains to today's poem quite nicely.

Billy Collins - "Forgetfulness"

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye,
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

1991