‘Memory Is Genius’

At a reading in New York City last winter, Robert Lowell patiently guided the audience through an abundant selection of his poetry, old and very recent, stopping continually along the way to track a particularly private passage, smoke out a furtive allusion. Nearly every poem required some autobiographical exertion, as Lowell moved back and forth from lines to life, life to lines. Soon, imperceptibly, the improvisational self-disclosure began to melt into the poetry, blurring the edges between commentary and verse the way a Steinberg cartoon absorbs its own composition. So many anecdotal footnotes, so many personal reminiscences: at one point Lowell shruggingly observed, “Memory is genius.”

It was meant to be a self-effacing remark, calculated to deflate conventional notions of creative genius as much as to elevate the less glamorous faculty of memory. But Lowell recognized that memory could be a quirky power. Unarranged and unembellished, always slipping in and out of tidy literary and biographical formulations, memory could just as easily inhibit verse as inspire it, trapping the imagination in endless cul-de-sacs of private associations. From his selections and ruminations that evening it seemed pretty clear that memory was beginning to crowd Lowell, pressing down on him like the embracing arm of a clingy drunken acquaintance at an interminable reception. If a poetic voice can be described visually, then Lowell’s was starting to flatten out, to resonate with all the timbre of an Instamatic snapshot.

RA

About the Author

Robert Atwan

Featured Tags

Manage following

Poetry

Literature

At a reading in New York City last winter, Robert Lowell patiently guided the audience through an abundant selection of his poetry, old and very recent, stopping continually along the way to track a particularly private passage, smoke out a furtive allusion. Nearly every poem required some autobiographical exertion, as Lowell moved back and forth from lines to life, life to lines. Soon, imperceptibly, the improvisational self-disclosure began to melt into the poetry, blurring the edges between commentary and verse the way a Steinberg cartoon absorbs its own composition. So many anecdotal footnotes, so many personal reminiscences: at one point Lowell shruggingly observed, “Memory is genius.”

It was meant to be a self-effacing remark, calculated to deflate conventional notions of creative genius as much as to elevate the less glamorous faculty of memory. But Lowell recognized that memory could be a quirky power. Unarranged and unembellished, always slipping in and out of tidy literary and biographical formulations, memory could just as easily inhibit verse as inspire it, trapping the imagination in endless cul-de-sacs of private associations. From his selections and ruminations that evening it seemed pretty clear that memory was beginning to crowd Lowell, pressing down on him like the embracing arm of a clingy drunken acquaintance at an interminable reception. If a poetic voice can be described visually, then Lowell’s was starting to flatten out, to resonate with all the timbre of an Instamatic snapshot.