Still Memory

I loved this poem for so many reasons, but one of the top reasons why is because I could relate to it so well; I love those vivid happy memories. In Still Memory the memory isn’t one that most would recall as happy, but I think for the poet the simplest memories are happy ones to her. Toward the end, I assume that this quote means that her parents are no longer with her, “My parents are not yet born each into a small urn of ash,” so anything that brings back the times with her parents is happy. These memories seem so real for the poet, and it is like time has stopped and I think that’s where she gets the title from. She describes the scene so vividly with the notches made to see how tall she was, her father coming home from work and the smell he had of crude oil and solvent, and her mother in the kitchen making dinner. The last stanza really sums everything up, “My ten-year-old hand reaches for a pen to record it all as would become long habit.” To me this just represents how the author became a poet. From when she was ten she looked at these memories as something to always remember. I came to think of this because of this specific phrase in that stanza: “(…) a pen to record it all as would become long habit.” That just shows how she looked at these memories as something special, and she thought that these memories were special enough to continue to record them in her own way and make it a habit, ultimately showing how it became her career. At the end of the day, this poem was pretty straight-forward, but it is one of those poems that makes you stop and think of your own special memories… : )