I Remember

In his experimental memoir, I Remember (Angel Hair Books, 1970), Joe Brainard begins every paragraph with the phrase, “I remember.” By repeating this simple form again and again, Brainard is able to uncover memories previously buried beneath other memories:

“I remember my grade school art teacher, Mrs. Chick, who got so mad at a boy one day she dumped a bucket of water over his head. I remember one very hot summer day I put ice cubes in my aquarium and all the fish died. I remember after people are gone thinking of things I should have said but didn’t.”

Try borrowing Brainard’s construction for your own experimental essay. Follow the beads of memory and see if they lead you somewhere surprising.

This experiment often works nicely over time. Start through free association - just start writing "I remember..." and let one memory link to the next. Do this for three or four different writing days, and then take a look at what you've gathered. Are there any interesting links among your memories? Do an editorial pass and see how you might shape an essay. Maybe you will want to edit out the "I remembers" or create some other structuring device. Or maybe you'll just let it all be a list. One of the key things here is to refuse to not write!

Poet Mary Ruefle has a nice example of this technique here ... If you want a way to start, you could mimic her attention to the events that shaped her as a poet. What moments have made - and make - you a designer/artist/writer/curator/thinker?