Exploring Perspectives on Forgetfulness Through Poetry

Forgetfulness is a hard part of almost all people’s lives and we can observe by reading the poems different ways to see the world and the problems that get in out way, some may face it with grace while other may feel like they are not living and just existing and stress the idea that they can’t control what happens in them.

The first poem is from Hart Crane and I believed each stanza is concealed but underneath it is a clear evidence of what he is going through. In this poem he is trying to express his own experience and I believe that at his time and place maybe he was suffering from dementia or he was classified with a mental illness that didn’t allow him to remember moments and when reality hits him is when he writes the the poem.

In the first stanza “is like a song” he tries to express that forgetfulness can be beautiful and uncontrolled just like a song. In the second stanza he starts reflecting his difficulty to remember (how does one "bury Gods"?) he is trying to express his feeling to forgetfulness as if it was a person. Crane is trying to make us feel rather than just telling us what is like, he is trying to build empathy through the

From about 70 years from Crane, Billy Collins write another poem about forgetfulness in which he seems to be more accepting about his satiation and tries to explain it as if it was part of the circle of life.

Collins accepts his reality and most of his poem is from a solemn tone. From history we know Collins’s father suffered from dementia so he was trying to justify his forgetfulness as part of life in which we’re all supposed to go through. This poem is for all audience: for young people is for them to understand someday they will go through it, and for the older ones tries to make empathy that if they are going through it, it’s