Bernadette Mayer’s Memory

Everyday Life, Revisited—with Bernadette Mayer’s Memory

In the poet’s work, the small and ordinary rise to the level of heroic adventures. If we value human life, then we should value what makes up a life.

From Memory by Bernadette Mayer, Siglio, 2020. Courtesy Bernadette Mayer Papers, Special Collections & Archives, University of California, San Diego.

By: Lindsay Garbutt

 

April 15, 2020

 

13 minutes

I started working on this article before COVID-19 became a global interruption to everyday life. Now, when we’re asked to stay home as much as possible, Memory serves as both an inspiration and a painful reminder of how full a day could be: parties with friends, trips to the bar or bookstore, busy city streets, casual encounters and road trips. So many aspects of normal life are on hold right now, and it can be useful to be reminded of what we took for granted. But Mayer’s work demonstrates the value in attending to our everyday life, even if it’s confined to smaller square footage. What happens outside the window, the noises we hear from other apartments, the photographs we find on our corkboard or in our phones, the meals we’re cooking, the shows we’re watching, the words we read online or in books—these are all part of life and demonstrate how larger structures of gender, politics, and economics affect even these small moments. They make up our memories too, if we pay attention.