Hello there, everyone! So this is the last week of blogging for the semester, and it is also the last time I will be concentrating on this topic for the passion blog. I’m not sure what I want to change it to, but I do know that this has run its course for me. I do hope that you enjoy this week’s blog post! I decided to go back to AP English again, and I dug up an old poem that my AP English gave us on one of the last days of school because I figured that if I started the semester with an AP English post, I should end it with one too.
So this week I’ll be looking at Billy Collin’s poem “Forgetfulness” and Sara Gazarek’s cover of “And So It Goes.”
“Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins was published in 1999 in his book entitled Questions About Angels.
“And So It Goes” was originally written by Billy Joel in 1983, but covered by Sara Gazarek; date and album unknown.
Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
As always, here is the song to go along with it:
This poem is actually sad when you get past the humor that the author is trying to portray to the audience. He uses words such as “heartbreaking conclusion,” “suddenly,” “never,” “long ago,” “slipping away,” “floated away,” and “oblivion” to create a sense of melancholy and nostalgia. It’s the same tone throughout, but the intensity that the reader may feel in terms of melancholia and nostalgia intensifies as the poem progresses. With the recurring motif of love, this allows for an even deeper sense of nostalgia, especially with words like “heartbreaking,” “kissed the names…goodbye,” and “used to know by heart.” There is also such strong imagery. Whether you choose to see it or not, you could almost picture kissing the Nine Muses goodbye and seeing the quadratic pack its bag because it is the loss of innocence and childhood. When did we learn these things? Maybe middle school, maybe high school, but regardless, they were the simpler times. This poem is the initiation of growing up because as other worries occupy the mind, the things we learned in grade school vanish because they are no longer important. To kind of hide the intensity of this meaning, Collins calls on the things we may not have enjoyed learning in the first place such as learning random state flowers and capitals of various countries, but then brings us down again with the mention of things that may have defined a childhood such as riding a bike and swimming.
I really hope I’m not the only one that sees the relationship between these two songs. With the soft piano and the smooth crooning of the singer, it gives off the tone of melancholy and nostalgia as well. What makes it more intense is that it is only the piano and voice, which doesn’t leave much room for the singer to hide behind. She had to express emotion with this and she did so beautifully. It’s almost as if she is singing through the pain of losing all she once had. She’s remembering her dad pushing her on her bike or she’s remembering her mom staying in the pool with her and encouraging her. Maybe she even feels that the heartbreak she feels is that of a lost love that reminded her of a book she read long ago, perhaps this lost love was the epitome of the love poem she memorized so long ago. The tone in her voice is so soft but so pained. She sounds almost as if she has nothing else, almost as if she has been abandoned, which she essentially has been. The tone of this song very well compliments the tone of the poem. The short piano solo allows for a reflection for what has been lost and allows for an even stronger sense of nostalgia.
Like I said, I got this poem through my AP English teacher who very much enjoys poetry month. I absolutely fell in love with it and it still brings me mixed emotions. I heard of this singer through a jazz competition. She was one of the judges and she was the one to give us feedback after (it was actually really exciting) and then she performed for us! I love her voice and I just so happen to love this cover of the song. She executes it beautifully. Anyway, thank you so much for reading these blog posts and I sincerely hope you enjoyed them. Have a lovely winter break and I’ll see you next semester!