Memory Cards: from Thomas Traherne Series

Susan M. Schultz

My desire, in these prose poems that riff off Thomas Traherne’s meditations, is to mix the poetry of fact with the poetry of attention.

“For many of the last 15 years, I’ve been writing my own “anti-psychological” memoir, Memory Cards. During much of that time, the poems have been nearly as obsessed with fact as with anywhere fact might lead. Fact can be an unkind and unforgiving muse, as it tends to pull short of truth. I have come to want, not what Joe Harrington calls the “the forced optimism of American culture,” but a realm more spiritual than factual. Whereas I was happy with meaning early in the project (historical, cultural, simply narrative), I’m now looking to see beyond fact, or into it with some clarity.”

SUSAN M. SCHULTZ has lived in and worked in Hawai`i since 1990. She is author of a critical book, A Poetics of Impasse in Modern and Contemporary American Poetry, and several books of poetry and poetic prose. Most recently, Singing Horse Press published Dementia Blog, Memory Cards: 2010-2011 Series and “She’s Welcome to Her Disease”: Dementia Blog, Vol. 2. Vagabond Press published Memory Cards: Dogen Series in their Decibels Series. Schultz founded Tinfish Press in 1995. Tinfish is now in its twentieth year of publishing experimental poetry from the Pacific.