Poetics 4

Joe Brainard’s book was helpful as a model for both the format and topics I included in my “I Remember” poem. This poem allowed for personal reflection to be used as inspiration, which was more difficult for me to do than in the previous poems about strictly objects or single events. I learned that certain smells, and certain memories of objects are linked and can take you from one memory to the next. The relationship between these memories may not be apparent to the reader, but I think the success of the writer depends on how well the memories are arranged to allow the memories to flow easily on the page. The connections may be obvious, or not so obvious. I appreciate the idea that no memory is insignificant. This encouraged me to write in a stream of thought, where each memory was just as important as the last. I found it difficult to use Joe Brainard’s poem as a model as well because his book/poem is lengthy, but complete. I struggled with finding a place to close the poem for the sake of the assignment.