In her article The Truth
Goes on Solving Nothing – A Conceit by Aislinn Hunter starts off with
the idea of “fixity”, which is the collection of bare bones facts that a memory
is constructed out of. She uses the example of remembering a picnic – the fixed
aspects of that memory; what you brought, or how much it cost. Each one of
these facts collect together and form the memory of the picnic, but every
person who attended that picnic is going to remember it differently. Later in
the article, Hunter likens this experience to a group of people listening an orchestra
play at the same time. Hunter, who likes the violin, listens closely to those
parts and walks away with an impression stacked heavily with the sounds of the
violin; in her own memory she may forget entirely about the oboe, even though
she witnessed it too.
Hunter
also points out a fun party trick the brain pulls, where it will actively try
and make sense of fragments or inaccuracies. This works out really well for storytelling,
as the brain actually wants to make the leap in logic for there to be some kind
of narrative. She uses the example of Seamus Heaney's poem called “Lightenings” that she reads
over and over again to illustrate this. The poem describes a ship appearing in
the air and dropping an anchor to that hooks onto the altar, and she claims to
be able to envision the church, and the monks, and even the anchor even though
she’s never seen anything like it before.
Language
has the power to enable that in us, to let us construct things we’ve never seen
or experienced, or to help us connect things we’ve never thought about to
things we don’t notice anymore. This is something that Don McKay’s poem “Setting
the Table” does for the common household items knives, forks, and spoons. Each
section is titled off with the object it’s going to go on to describe, which conjures
up a nice familiar image. Nice sturdy eating implements, you’ve probably got a
drawer full of more than you strictly need right now. McKay immediately starts
to de-familiarize them. The fork is a “touch of kestrel”, a type hawk, renowned
hunters. Already your empirical memory of what a fork is gets distorted by the
new image of a prey animal, and your brain is working to reconcile the two
images. Personally, I have the image of a fork hovering over a plate, and
seeking out the best selection of food and then diving down to spear its
choice. Then as you read the next line you learn it isn’t really the fork he’s
talking about - “a touch of kestrel/ of Chopin, your hand with its fork”. You
are the hunter, the fork is your weapon, and you elegantly hunt (perhaps dance)
after your prey. In the space of two lines the image shifts around, and your
brain will shift with it because it wants
to make this coherent. Your brain wants reconcile
your previous conception of a fork and string it together with the hunter, and
the composer. This is the mental equivalent to orienteering. The reader will be
able to run the course so long as the poet has it set up.
Perhaps you aught to have included the picture earlier in the post. It would have offered a nice break from the otherwise long block of text.
ReplyDeleteI do like thinking that the brain is actually flawed. It's fun to take identical information, and compare it. Poetry no less.
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ReplyDeleteI actually find this sort of stuff interesting. I totally understand the orchestra metaphor; whenever I go to a show, I always watch the drummer and listen to what they're doing. I always hate it when musicals have live bands playing out front/in sight of everyone, because I always pay more attention to the drummer than anything else.
ReplyDeleteI once saw Memphis on Broadway. I don't remember a single song from it because they had the band on stage 3/4 of the time.
I was learning about the party trick the brain pulls on inaccuracies with memory. I find it interesting because the mind implants false memories that are associated with real memories.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea that our brain acts as a mediator in the creation of our narratives/poetry. I think it's interesting that when myself and a friend are trying to tell another friend about something that happened, we have two different versions of it because we pick up on different cues. I also often experience this too when I talk to my mother about somewhere we went when I was younger - together we piece the story together but I'm sure it's not the original story that I perceived.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how the poet makes a narrative out of a seemingly inconsequential sequence of events before he or she dissociates the reader from it--from the familiar. This makes the poet an explorer, going somewhere before telling the world about it and making them question their own microcosm of life.
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