Forgetfulness Billy Collins Analysis

Memories from the past are shown throughout our environment. Sometimes, recalling memories from surroundings are simple, like looking into the eyes of your father. As people proceed in their lives, they encounter moments that affect them deeply. Sometimes, a discharge of memories occur, showing a recognition of righteousness in people. In a short story called “Aero Bars” by Robert Hilles, the narrator acknowledges his father’s love through recalling the past. By reminiscing memories of remarkable values or behaviours, one is able to develop a moral conscience.

The Past, an ever growing pool of time, is always biting at the heels of a person. It reminds him of what they have done wrong, done right, or when he did nothing. For most people, recalling the past leads to loose ends and blanks where memories should be. No matter how much a person may want to return to the past, it is not possible. It is lost forever. These forgotten moment lead to uncertainties and confusion in the present, and chaos in the future. Forgetting the past leads to spirals, spinning downwards as people look to what they have lost. They retrace their steps hoping to find a sliver of who they are and what may become of them. In the poem, Itinerary, Eamon Grennan shows how an individual searches through his past, but can never return to it. Through the poem and with a personal experience I will explain how individuals deal with uncertainties in their pasts.

The memories in the poem maintain a cohesiveness and continuity of experience through repeated motifs such as the violets and the ‘whistling’. Memories also give us a recovered sense of life, as shown through the final line of the poem ‘faint scent of violets drifts in air’. This example of sensory imagery also creates a rhythmic drifting sense linked closely to the “stone-curlews call from Kedron Brook”. It echoes images of the speaker’s mind drifting into reflection and aurally creates transience between the present and the past.

Although ethos and logos are important modes as well, this text is most effective due to White’s continuous use of pathos. His thesis statement suggests the urge to return to his childhood memories, “…this feeling got so strong I bought myself a couple of bass hooks and a spinner and returned to the lake where we used to go, for a week’s fishing and to re-visit old haunts” (“Once” para. 1).The audience is also evoked with anticipation to what will happen later. A good example of this is “I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows” (“Once” para. 2). The audience is left asking how the trip with his son will compare to his own memories. White goes on to describe in intricate detail his memory of the lake, cabins, and scenery. He uses visual imagery to allow the audience to place themselves in the setting he has described. “White wants to emphasize the permanence of some things, or at least the memory of some things, despite the continual change that happens in the world”

A shift in focus from the students to himself creates an interesting structure in the poem. Collins began discussing his disinterest of his students and their laughable yet pathetic lifestyle. Then toward the end, the author shifts to speak about himself. He expresses the impact of being a long time teacher and the loneliness that comes along with it. Collins creates the detailed image of his colonial house, the deflated car, and vines growing on the porch swing, revealing his depression and sense of being trapped. Therefore, the author connects how past students have driven him to insanity and caused him to create a false reality in his head.

The two texts, "Excerpt from Martin Sloane: A Novel", by Michael Redhill and "Ode to a Box of Tea" by Pablo Neruda have several things in common. These things relate to how the authors of each text talk about their memories and the objects that go along with those memories.

Memory is used as a powerful conduit into the past; childhood experiences held in the subconscious illuminate an adult’s perception. Harwood uses tense shifts throughout her poetry to emphasise and indicate the interweaving and connection the past and the present hold. By allowing this examination of the childhood memories, Harwood identifies that their significance is that of an everlasting memory that will dominate over time’s continuity and the inevitability of death.

First off, “Once More to the Lake” and “Forgetfulness” each utilize nostalgic diction in order to generate the theme of annihilated time. In “Once More to the Lake,” the narrator takes his son to a lake in Maine that he always went to as a child. Throughout the story, he mentions how he sees himself in his son, hence getting him caught up with how quickly time flew by. In more detail, he chooses specific words to describe these feelings, such as “sustain the illusion” (White 2) and “revisit old haunts” (White 1). By using these specific words to explain his experience with his son, it makes it seem both natural and unnatural, similar to the passing of forgotten time. Moreover, these specific

E.B White, author of “Once More to the Lake” explores the dynamic relationship between father and son to convey the power of memory and the inevitable chill of mortality. The symbol of the dragonfly and the lake creates a sense of duality while introducing subtle changes throughout the essay.

First and foremost, authors E.B. White and Billy Collins both use exceptional repetition to portray the themes of their writings “Once More to the Lake” and “Forgetfulness”. In the essay “Once More to the Lake,” the main character expressed his connection to the lake from a young age. Later in life he brings his son and begins to be at a loss for his identity while being at the lake. Similar in theme, the poem “Forgetfulness” is a tale describing the loss of parts of one’s life that used to be known, much like identity loss. Repetition is a major key in both texts for pushing the theme of identity loss. During “Once More to the Lake,” E.B White experienced many moments that

Forgetfulness can be seen in many different lights; it can be seen a bad thing, or a good thing. In the poem “Forgetfulness” by Hart Crane, the speaker utilizes similes and metaphors to convey ideas about forgetfulness in order to develop the theme; in the poem by Billy Collins with the same name, the speaker utilizes personification and irony to convey ideas about forgetfulness to develop the theme.

Memory is a set of cognitive processes that allow us to remember past information (retrospective memory) and future obligations (prospective memory) so we can navigate our lives. The strength of our memory can be influenced by the connections we make through different cognitive faculties as well as by the amount of time we spend devoting to learning specific material across different points in time. New memories are created every time we remember specific event, which results in retrospective memories changing over time. Memory recall can be affected retrospectively such as seeing increased recall in the presence of contextual cues or false recall of information following leading questions. Memory also includes the process

The theme of emptiness is seen throughout Thomas’ poems. The wartime poet writes of his memory of livelihood and activity in villages, such as the one described in ‘Aspens’, and then how it begins to disappear as a result of war. This is shown as the village is left with a ‘lightless pane and footless road’ causing the village to appear as ‘empty as sky’ and this simile gives a sense of vastness of the effects of the war, emphasising on the emptiness in the poem. Further, the mention of the ‘cross-roads to a ghostly room’ explicates that the village is so empty that it is leading nowhere. This metaphor is ironic as cross-roads are suggestively open gateways and a sense of choice in direction. However this connotation is altered as Thomas uses the metaphor ‘ghostly room’, to portray the vacant village and this is supported by the cross-roads as they lead to emptiness and isolation. This is also seen in ‘Old Man’ as the paradox ‘only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end’ gives a sense of no lead despite the fact that an avenue should lead somewhere. It is clear here that Thomas’ state of depression is

Memory – what it is, how it works, and how it might be manipulated – has long been a subject of curious fascination. Remembering, the mind-boggling ability in which the human brain can conjure up very specific, very lucid, long-gone episodes from any given point on the timeline of our lives, is an astounding feat. Yet, along with our brain’s ability of remembrance comes also the concept of forgetting: interruptions of memory or “an inability of consciousness to make present to itself what it wants” (Honold, 1994, p. 2). There is a very close relationship between remembering and forgetting; in fact, the two come hand-in-hand. A close reading of Joshua Foer’s essay, “The End of Remembering”, and Susan Griffin’s piece, “Our Secret”, directs us

Collins uses words that are fused with loss and melancholy when he says “night” and “war” which indicate a tonal shift. He then also mentions the moon “drifting out of a love poem,” an emotional memory that one will never be able to recall again. The tone shift is also seen specifically through the words denoted in the poem; such as “slip” and “float” which imply a sense of a gradual and smooth process of forgetting.