Forgetfulness

In “Forgetfulness,” the author figure represents connection to creative forces and the beginning of the aging process. Collins mentions him in the first stanza, writing, “The name of the author is the first to go” (Line 1). The line is perhaps self-referential, as Collins may be writing about his own worries that people will forget his writing. The author in the poem is also the inciting incident, the first memory loss that triggers a cascade of realization: Forgetting is inevitable. The author also represents the speaker’s fear that the author has little value to his readers. As the “first to go” (Line 1), all of the other elements of the book (the title, plot, conclusion, etc.) last a little bit longer in the “you” figure’s brain. The speaker projects worry onto the “you” figure, creating a pervasive sense of loss of self—an underlying fear that the speaker himself will both be the one to forget and the one forgotten.

Collins employs two allusions to Greek mythology in “Forgetfulness,” creating a motif that emphasizes the intellectual loss the “you” suffers, as well as the creative loss. Collins writes, “Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye” (Line 8).