by Joseph O. Legaspi
Joseph O. Legaspi shares a prompt related to memory and identity
“I want to create a narrative of the self. I believe every life is worth mythologizing.”
1. Write down the first five words, images or phrases that arise in you from looking at this photo. (Give yourself 1 minute.)
Light & Trees by Greig Fraser
2. And this photo. (Give yourself another minute.)
Light Window by Greig Fraser
Then:
- List things/events that you want to remember, as many as you can jot down in 5 minutes.
- List things/events that you want to forget (again, 5 minutes).
I want to create a narrative of the self. I believe every life is worth mythologizing. Specifically, I want to explore and to illustrate the functions of memory in writing, in poetry. Memory, as a selection of images — elusive at times, but imprinted indelibly on the brain — serves as a vital tool in the creation of poems.
And memory happens! “It’s surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time,” novelist Barbara Kingsolver once said. We accumulate memories as we live, breathe and walk on this earth, and in turn we are an accumulation of our memories. We are our memories, as the saying goes. Memory is time-shifting, malleable and can even be said to live outside of time. A smile happens in a flash, but memory can last a lifetime.
Then how does memory serve us? How much of our memories are true? Memories are a kind of truth, but we can change the meaning and power they have over us.
The above mini-exercises are components: The collected words and lists of remembrances are raw materials, and here we proceed with the prompt even further.
- Pick an item — a memory — from “what you want to remember,” but write only about, or rather concentrate on, the odors, scents. Incorporate many of the words, images or phrases you invoked while musing at photo #2.
Free-write for 10 minutes.
- Select a memory from “what you want to forget,” and write in this scenario: You are in the future, in bed, dreaming. The forgotten memory appears, haunting you, perhaps. A magical animal also crosses your path. In your narrative, incorporate images invoked by photo #1, the light through trees.
Free-write for 10 minutes.
Hopefully you’ll complete this exercise with two worthwhile drafts. Try to compare the two to determine and muse at how memory works in each free-write. The poems should be rooted in autobiography, but not strictly so. What we remember and/or don’t remember is open to multiple interpretations and possibilities. Be honest, and the poems will be, too.
Joseph O. Legaspi is the author of Imago (CavanKerry Press, 2007), winner of a 2008 Global Filipino Literary Award. Born in the Philippines, he currently resides in New York City. His work has appeared in numerous journals, online publications and anthologies. A recipient of a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, he co-founded Kundiman, a nonprofit organization serving Asian American poets. Visit him at www.josepholegaspi.com.
This is such a great prompt! I really love the images. And this reminder seems so important: “What we remember and/or don’t remember is open to multiple interpretations and possibilities.” Yes, that’s exactly right.
I love the idea that we can re-frame our memories, and the implication that in doing so, we are altering our selves in a way — that our memories (and hence our identities) are malleable and not cast in stone.
Damian replied:
September 6th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Memories are pathways through grass: The more well-worn the track, the easier it is to find your way, and the if we never think of sometime, we’ll never be able to find the path without a guide.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
September 6th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Very well-stated. And memories, if they are cruddy ones, can be pathways through shards of glass — which you can tumble and dull through reframing. (Which I know isn’t Joseph’s point. I am just saying.)
I love this prompt. It is at the heart of what poets do, take something from life or memory and give it a new shape that is somehow true, even if it isn’t.
I keep messing this one up, like a kid who’s written “what I did this summer” instead of a book report, and I wonder if you’ll notice the smears and the thin place where I keep erasing the title, trying to make it match.
Joseph Harker replied:
September 5th, 2009 at 9:56 am
He does say, though, that these are just meant to be drafts. I had the same kind of problem until I stopped trying to do exactly what was prompted, and just let them be guidelines, a springboard. Guess it ended up pretty far away from the exact rules in the end, but the result was still better than if I had tried to include everything that flowed from these images/lists.
Nathan replied:
September 5th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Joseph, I know what you mean. I wouldn’t be able to write if I thought I had to follow a prompt to the letter.
Nathan replied:
September 5th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
The smears are always my favorite part, Barbara.
i really like this prompt. it’s very different but very similar to how i usually write. different because i never write about myself directly or use my memories or “real life” experiences in my writing. but similar because i do understand the idea of interpreting or altering memories or making up completely new ones to create the narrative of a piece of myself that is exaggerated within a fictional self through writing.
Nathan replied:
September 5th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Nubia.
“to create the narrative of a piece of myself that is exaggerated within a fictional self through writing” — yes, exactly.
oh, my–but that reactionary, oppositionally-defiant part of me took one look at this and started screaming.
my first try has turned into an archaeopteryx.
I can usually tumble out frolicking rollicking
poems fairly effortlessly..not this time.Dealing with a semi serious autobiographical exposee has been a struggle to write and not taken the usual twenty minutes. This is my first and last.In future I will as expected use humour riot and flippancy as masks to dodge and weave behind…much more comfortable with this.
I am adoring this prompt. I appreciate the devotion it requires and appreciate even more the request to take more than one swipe at this (a couple drafts expected… hooray – more reflection!)
I read it, didn’t even start working on it, when it was first posted. Now I am back and beginning the work on the first draft.
Lush, rich and grateful here in Bakersfield today.
MEMORY…whats that? This old poet has to remember something…forget it then remember it again…and concentrate also…..YIKES. This is getting very difficult.
HONESTY also…holy crap
http://poemsotherwise.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-day.html
[...] response to the first half of Joseph O. Legaspi’s prompt this week at Read Write Poem. To see what others have done, go [...]
I’ve only written to the first half. It’s On the Bay of Three Sister Saints off the Yucatan Peninsula, January 2000. It’s meaningful to me, but I’m not sure I’ve jumped as far into the salty waves as I want to.
Will continue with this delightful prompt.
Nice prompt, Joseph. “I believe every life is worth mythologizing.” So very true. I’m off to try this exercise now.
XOXO
Strange how some of the things I wanted to remember were actually someone else’s memories (my grandmother’s).
My response to Joseph’s prompt.