Memory has become something of a meme during the COVID-19 pandemic. Remember dinner with friends? Remember live music? folks have asked me on social Zoom calls, the flippancy of the question masking real loneliness. I remember those things, too. I miss our lives as they were a year ago. I miss friends and colleagues. I miss telling jokes in person. I miss breaking bread. 

Thinking about memory always moves me to re-read Joe Brainard. Brainard was a visual artist--a painter, a collagist, a collector of objects--and a poet. His association with poetry's New York School (Frank O'Hara, Ron Padgett, Ted Berrigan, and John Ashbery were among his close friends) had a profound influence on his art, and his production was prolific (by all accounts, Brainard wrote, painted, collaged, and assembled for the sheer fun of it). His best-known work of poetry is a book-length list poem titled I Remember, first published in 1970. The list builds through memories funny, poignant, and above all, specific: 

I remember eating tunnels and cities out of watermelon.

I remember one brick wall and three white walls.

I remember drawing pictures in church on pledge envelopes and programs.

I remember Christmas cards arriving from people my parents forgot to send Christmas cards to. 

I remember little cream jars in restaurants. 

I remember going grocery shopping with Pat Padgett (Pat Mitchell then) and slipping a steak into her coat pocket when she wasn't looking.

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You can see Brainard's visual imagination driving these memories, which often focus on concrete, tangible, very individual objects (though when he does zoom out to abstractions, they hit hard: "I remember how much rock and roll music can hurt. It can feel so free and sexy when you are not"). I've always loved I Remember for its imagery and for its lovingness: the list accumulates and accumulates, here is a life, here is my life, I was here. As we enter this academic year, I feel particularly compelled to remember; Brainard's brilliant list form helps me remember better.

The form is simple: start your sentences with "I remember" and then finish them. If you try writing an "I remember" list of your own, I guarantee that surprising memories will surface. May we all remember well!