The poem “One Had Lived in a Room and Loved Nothing,” By Charles Fort, at a first glance is not a long one at all. It is a nice and short one, however in this shorter poem there is a lot of meaning an connection that could be be made. I found a connection through this poem because it  talks about being in a room but not being a part of it. It’s kind of like a skeleton where I’m just there with no connection, no “meat” there. All my life I Have moved and there are some places I’ve felt more connected to however there are some places that I “…had forgotten things.” (Fort 34) The poem itself is not about moving; however it’s about being somewhere where you don’t feel as connected a places you may forget. I have always been different, because I have always been the new kid.

Being different is hard sometimes, I’m only 18 and I’ve moved 8 times in 7 different states and 6 different schools, living on both west and east coast. Living in all these places I do make a lot of friends. However, I also left these placing meaning over time I would begin to lose a lot of friends. Sometimes I even have to ask “… who was that voice on the telephone?” I feel bad but without keeping these connections, but with me being so young in a lot of these places there was no way for us to keep in touch because we didn’t have phones or Facebook, and over time our memories start to fall apart.

I came across this poem when we were looking for a poem to pitch to the class. I found this poem in the 2016 volume of BAP, and it  really explained how I felt when I was in these places I’ve lived. This poem, “One Had Lived in a Room and Loved Nothing” to me, really expressed a disconnection that someone can have and that over time you slowly forget things, asking “…who were the two in the photograph?”

The poem opens and talks about how a girl and how she had this memory but she is starting to forget it and to show this the author says it is full of spiders. Talking about how she didn’t think about this memory for a while. As she thinks about it more she gets lost thinking about this place, unsure of who was there. As she thinks about it more she starts to remember some details of memory where she was confused. In the end it all slowly starts to mesh together and she can’t decipher from day or night. She has forgotten and she has no feelings for this memory. She was hurt but over time it  slowly faded and was lost with the rest of her memories.

I love that the author got this entire poem from just a simple interaction from a daughter and her mother in a cafe. He said that he saw them talking and the daughter was crying and the mother did not approve of what they were talking about, he says that she didn’t recognize her own daughter. Over the next couple of days Fort wrote the poem from what he remembers and his imagination. I think it’s amazing how he got this idea and came with this beautiful poem which I now read and think of it in a completely different way. It is a amazing how writing can be interpreted in so many different ways.

It’s possible that this poem was not meant only for a daughter and mother but the struggle between two things and the memories that can come from it.

\

Citation

Popova, Maria. “When Things Fall Apart: Tibetan Buddhist Nun and Teacher Pema Chödrön on Transformation Through Difficult Times.” Brain Pickings, Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, 14 July 2017, www.brainpickings.org/2017/07/17/when-things-fall-apart-pema-chodron/.