Completely Subjective: Jeffery Harrison’s “Amnesia”
Jeffery Harrison’s poem “Amnesia,” describes a scene that most people reading the poem can easily immerse themselves in. A moment of remembering something, but it being on the tip of your tongue— a memory you can almost reach, yet one that becomes murky once specific details are required. Harrison was born in Cincinnati in 1957 and went on to attend Columbia University, where he worked to improve his craft, resulting in the publication of multiple poetry books, including his most recent, Between Lakes, published in 2020. “Amnesia,” however, was released as a stand-alone poem.
In college, Harrison’s love of imagination and the mind was able to flourish, in part because Harrison took an “Imaginative Writing” course, taught by American poet Kenneth Koch. In an interview with his old school, Columbia University, Harrison details the class to have been “thrilling” from the moment he stepped in, spending most of the interview recalling fond memories of his experience within the classroom, socializing with his talented peers, and especially with Koch. (Harrison).
“Amnesia” has an interesting shape regarding its storytelling. Harrison takes readers on a journey and puts them directly into the shoes of the speaker of the poem, maneuvering readers as the speaker tries to decipher this fleeting memory they desperately want to recall. In the poem, this memory is that of a poem that Harrison once read, by his former professor Kenneth Koch, ironically also named “Amnesia.” Harrison is sure he knows how the poem began, but can’t come up with anything by reaching into the recesses of his mind. Eventually, he succumbs to searching for said poem on the internet (which “supposedly remembers everything”) and can find the poem, realizing Koch didn’t write it but instead that it was dedicated to him (the poem really being written by Australian poet John Kinsella). Only by looking at the beginning of said poem again, he concludes that the version he had dreamt up was better than the original poem.
Throughout the poem, there is a sense of give and take regarding the memories Harrison attempts to recall within the poem, the most obvious being the poem by Kinsella. Upon conducting a closer reading, however, readers can begin to notice other details that go unnoticed, such as Harrison forgetting where his home is while trying to recall the poem as well as forgetting he could use the internet to search for said poem until about halfway through his poem (please bear with the preposterous number of times I will have to write the word “poem” in this article, the use of metafiction in this poem, as in, that of a poem being inside a poem, is driving me insane). Similar to yin and yang, Harrison’s poem explores the idea that in the place of forgetting, there is remembering —especially since the poem begins with Harrison recalling something that came to him in a dream.
I chose this poem because, in a sense, I believe its major ideas mirror my current experience with school, those ideas being (you guessed it), constantly forgetting both small and big things alike. Harrison’s almost heroic journey into the crevices of his mind reminded me of a mental exercise I perform daily, one of remembering what homework I have due tomorrow or what I need to get done around the house before work. I have a severe issue that many teens struggle with daily: procrastination. Although I sometimes don’t even consider it that way, it has developed into a state of existence where I genuinely can’t remember things I need to do that I don’t particularly enjoy doing.
Instead, I sometimes opt to do time-occupying tasks that I enjoy, which get my creative juices flowing, such as sketching in my sketchbook or going out for a walk. Many times, I’ll arrive home after an after-school commitment and settle into my home, drained from a full day of classes, and catch up on an episode of the latest show I’m watching or make myself a snack. The stress of schoolwork piling up on me has the opposite effect it should, as instead of feeling motivated to study, I feel dread, one that makes me avoid my work entirely.
These seemingly harmless activities become the things that set me back in my classes, which in turn both stress me and deter me from applying myself more, similarly to how Harrison believes he remembers a specific line from Kinsella’s Amnesia, but upon discovering the poem, realizes he likes his version of the first few stanzas more than the actual poem. In my case, I like this system I’ve dreamed up, one where I’m just barely making deadlines in an effort to maximize my daily enjoyment, time for myself, and indulgence in my hobbies. Harrison’s story-like structure to his poem mimics that of a person’s thought process, something that jumped out to me while reading the poem. I could picture myself in Harrison’s position, trying to recall what my duties and responsibilities are, and upon finding them, liking my own interpretation of my afternoon’s events better, settling for a relaxing walk around my neighborhood instead.
This writing is what injects Harrison’s poem with such bittersweet understanding, a sort of sympathy directed at the poem’s protagonist. Its theme of forgetfulness and contempt within that forgetfulness (the beginning of the poem that Harrison fabricated) comes together to make a truly remarkable poem worthy of its spot among the Best American Poetry this revolution around the sun. Though Harrison has forgotten the name poem he was looking for, he makes readers remember the human bond they share, that of memory and its frailty.