Memory has been much in my mind recently, at least partly on account of reading poems to people with loss of memory. And with gratitude to my good friends at the Poetry Society for publishing my description of doing this, in Poetry News. It really is something to think about, when the experience of hearing a poem remembered from childhood lights up someone who remembers very little of the here and now – a person for whom there isn’t much in the present tense, but for whom the past is rich. So it’s not at all the case that they don’t have memory or are lacking in memories. All somewhat paradoxical, as the more distant memories might be thought to be harder to reach. But entering this strange land, we encounter many an unexpected phenomenon, such as the story of a cat and an owl sailing a boat for a year and a day before marrying, slithy toves that gyre and gimble in the wabe and a walrus addressing an assemblage of oysters. The farthest away memories are almost the cle