Mary Karr's Still Memory

The poem “Alzheimer’s”, written by Kelly Cherry in 1997, focuses on the difficulties encountered by a man with Alzheimer’s disease as he returns to his home after a stay in the hospital. “Alzheimer’s” is set in England on a sunny day, with the speaker in the role of an observer. The speaker details the feelings and thoughts of a man as he struggles to cope with the memories of the past and tie them to the present. The speaker describes how the man is able to gather memories of building his home and thoughts of his youth; however, the memory of the woman at the front door is elusive.

Three poems written by Harwood that emphasise the idea of memory’s importance and its ability to alter and determine perceptions are ‘Father and Child’, ‘The Violets’ and ‘At Mornington’. Each of these poems reminisces on pivotal experiences that modify one’s assessment

In the first stanza, “The doors to rooms they will not be/ Coming back to.” (Justice 3-4) are referring to the way of life that he had when he was younger. The doors are used as a symbol for the memories that he still has. Justice makes sure that the reader knows that “Men at forty/ Learn to close softly” (Justice 1-2), because men want to be able to go back to that time. He wants to go back to a time that is simpler than the one that he is in now by saying “The face of the boy as he practices tying/ His father’s tie there in secret,” (Justice 11-12). He is reflecting back on this because the times were different and there was less stress to deal with. As the change in a man happens, there is always a part of him that wishes they did not have to grow

Throughout the poem, Olds includes repetition of “This is” statements to convey how it can be exhausting to raise a child, but in the end, it is bittersweet to have watched them grow. Looking back on the child’s life, the speaker recollects the first trip to the pediatrician's office: “This is the archway” (Olds 1). In combination with later repetition, the line foresees the many appointments the child and mother will attend. Along with conveying the first appointment, the phrase also demonstrates a parent’s first time worries after having a child, where each sniffle or cough is serious. Upon returning to the doctor’s office, the mom comes to realize that taking care of a child is constant work: “This is the door / we came

Edward Hirsch starts off the elegy by writing about when they were at the funeral home, and shocked by the sight of recently deceased son. Hirsch says, “And for a moment I was taken aback/Because it was not Gabriel/ It was some poor kid/ Whose face looked like a room/ That had been vacated”. He uses these descriptive words to set the emotion and sensitivity for the rest of the poem, which is bitter and disheartening.

Moreover, writing about memory which is the groundwork of the traditional autobiographical genre is a problematic endeavor, since it is a project of conflating memory, imagination, and sometimes a conscious misrepresentation of the past. Likewise, it is a way to inscribe the discursive selves that they envision as “true” representations of their selfhoods.

Gwen Harwood’s poetry endures to engage readers through its poetic treatment of loss and consolation. Gwen Harwood’s seemingly ironic simultaneous examination of the personal and the universal is regarded as holding sufficient textual integrity that it has come to resonate with a broad audience and a number of critical perspectives. This is clearly evident within her poems ‘At Mornington’ and ‘A Valediction’, these specific texts have a main focus on motif that once innocence is lost it cannot be reclaimed, and it is only through appreciating the value of what we have lost that we can experience comfort and achieve growth.

In the poem “Alzheimer’s”, Kelly Cherry has written about her father. It begins with an old man trying to make sense of the things around him. He is obviously confused, but tries to hide it. She writes that he carries with him, “A book he sometimes pretends to read” (Line 5). The man seems to identify with the struggle of the flowers as they fight for space on the brick wall, just as he is struggling with reconciling this house with the one he remembers (Lines 6-7) (15). Alzheimer’s

The author starts off with listing all different kinds of loud noises. Each of which suggest that even the loudest of noises will not wake up this child of his. With that being said, if these parents were to make any noises relative to sex, their son would instantly wake up and come to his parent’s room. As the child makes his way to their room, one of the parents starts to go in detail on what is happening and the love that this parent has for the other. When the young boy finally reaches his parent’s room he crawls onto their bed and lies in between the two and hugs them. The young boy then smiles from how happy he is, showing how he loves his life and in which refers to the theme of this poem. Then after the parents look at each other, smile and reach across the young boy to each other. With this action, the take a trip down memory to the making of this beautiful creation of theirs and how their love making is what wakes their child and brings him into their arms again, just like the way he started out. This also shows how the parents are loving their lives and the life of their son, which also helps supports the

The words will get into your soul and bring sorrow and anger to the surface. The word “whiskey” (line 1) shows the father is a drinking man, and the word “dizzy” (line 2) implies the amount of whiskey his father consumes sickens the boy. The boy is young and fragile which plays in the lines of the poem “death” (line 3), “battered” (line 10), “beat” (line 13), and “caked hard” (line 14), are all negative hidden meanings. The word “countenance” (line 7) parallels the mother’s stern disapproval. “Hung” (line 3) is past tense reflecting on an earlier time.

The loss of the material objects like the door keys and time suggests that the writer is trying to distract herself with little things. In line ten, the writer steps into more sentimental things like her mother’s watch. The poem has gotten more personal and instead of the loss of wasted time, she has now lost family time. The writer had lost the times she could’ve spent with her mother if she hadn’t been committed to mental hospitals. The chronological order of the poem, which seems to be cheery in the beginning, starts to fade into

The poem uses connotation within images to help drive home the emotion of the experience. Images such as the lighthouse give you a feeling of strength and security but as pointed out the inside is hollow. This emptiness gives the pervious feelings an air of false-ness and frailty. Thus how the characters own strength feels frail and their security false. The speaker also uses the image of bolting doors to show how she creates an image of an unbreakable seal.

The poet has used device of anaphora in that “And” is used at the beginning of many of the lines. In order to emphasize the idea that the mother’s life was not ideal and perfect like a crystal stair, a line is repeated twice: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Enjambment is used throughout poem as, “And splinters,/ And boards torn up.” The language is unpretentious and

Memories can be as short-lived as the moments that created them. The recollection of events and the deterioration of memories over time is a constant process that cannot be stopped. This inevitable passing of memory is fused to the inevitable passing of human life. Emily Davis’s still life photograph of wineglasses is reflective and fragmented, allowing the image to act as a metaphor for this fleeting aspect of memory through its own memory-like qualities. The photograph is also symbolic of the transience of human life through the use of the traditional symbol of the wineglass, ultimately serving as memento mori.

Its particularly significant because the narrator is mourning in the burned house. They mourn the loss of their family, house and life and are seemingly doomed to reside in the burned housw for eternity, had they literally died. If the poem were not literal, its likely symbolic of the impact losing their family had on the child. Perhaps the child is trapped not by their death but by a saddening evebt that leaves them feeling hopeless. Since the child cannot find their family in their afterlife, its likely such an event had to do with losing their family.