1518: On Being Told I Should Write a Memoir by Jan-Henry Gray
1518: On Being Told I Should Write a Memoir by Jan-Henry Gray
TRANSCRIPT
I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.
Sometimes people ask me, “Why did you write a memoir? Why not a collection of poems on the same subject?”
I understand the question, but it implies there’s some kind of ranking between forms, that one is better than the other. In this case, I just couldn’t have done the same narrative work in poems. That’s not a limitation of poetry. It’s not that poems can’t accommodate that kind of narrative. It's only to say that’s not how I decided to approach the material.
The same is true in reverse, though. Sometimes the material begs to be a poem, or a whole book of poems. I’ve read incredible collections that almost feel like memoirs-in-verse. The poems do work with image, line, syntax, and white space that would be difficult to achieve in prose. They don’t tell a story, they sing a story.
Today’s poem excavates childhood memories in a way only a poem can — and it enacts the fragmentation, the piece-iness, of memory. I should also mention that the poem uses lines from one of my favorite bands, Built to Spill, as an epigraph. Because in our memories, sometimes other people sing parts of the story.
On Being Told I Should Write a Memoir
by Jan-Henry Gray
"there's a mean bone in my body
it's connected to the problem"
—Built to Spill
describe the room name the pain where are you headed?
wandering random regular
can't read maps further and further away curtains closed
a product of American hostility the TV filled with a smell you can't forget
dangerous sexual practices jealous of others' successes the song came on
a blip a minor name a list
we found what we found and did and did not touch
the gun in the drawer the pipe wrapped in a towel the box of porn
a brown vile behind the shelf barely hidden
Marco Hide and Seek Polo
there was a blue curtain there were horses on a rug there was a man we called uncle
the door was open it was after school as ordinary as a Tuesday
bad example risk management one of the horses was white
periwinkle not sky blue a tapestry not a rug of horses galloping not running
a man we called uncle on his knees on the carpet
his balding head his long fingers raking the carpet down to its scalp
he didn't want to lose any of what he paid for with his good money
glitter everywhere star-shaped candy white powder on a dark blue carpet
what is an open secret what do we say about what we see
what's the story whose is it what can you make of it
comfort in a city's density access to free resources street smarts
paradox compromise resilience
one nostril then the other all the way in
for years the tapestry hung on the wall those horses they saw everything
more and more strangers multiple men
late nights daytime whenever
addiction pleasure hardcore
credit without the attention attention without the blame a house with few rules
shed the old self the young you be new
nondescript nonfiction no tattoos
no window to crack no breeze no leaving
lived-through lived-in vivid
if and when toys arrive with no instructions
treat them as the gifts they are
lose yourself and play
“On Being Told I Should Write a Memoir” by Jan-Henry Gray. Used by permission of the poet.
