Memory Future

by Heather Aimee O'Neill

Winner of the 2010 Gold Line Press poetry chapbook competition.

“We’ll leave behind a language, travel back”, says Heather Aimee O’Neill in a poem from “Memory Future”, locating the ghost of Jeanette Winterson’s “..memory past, memory future” precisely in these lyrical remembrances of what has not yet come full circle. The trajectory forward into memory is the path of the imagination — these fiercely delicate poems prove what we already knew: that remembering and imagining are one.”

— Carol Muske-Dukes, judge

Genres: Poetry

35 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2011

About the author

Heather Aimee O’Neill is the Assistant Director of the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, and teaches creative writing at CUNY Hunter College. An excerpt from her novel When The Lights Go On Again was published as a chapbook by Wallflower Press in April 2013. Her poetry chapbook, Memory Future, won the University of Southern California's 2011 Gold Line Press Award, chosen by judge Carol Muske-Dukes. Her work was shortlisted for the 2011 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Award and has appeared in numerous literary journals. She is a freelance writer for publications such as Time Out New York, Parents Magazine and Salon.com, and is a regular book columnist at MTV’s AfterEllen.com.

Reviews

[Jessica Piazza]

AMAZING.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This won the Goldline Press Chap. Contest. As an actual object, it's really well done. So, kudos to Gold Line and O'Neill.

As a collection of poems, it strikes me as a bit front-loaded--the latter poems didn't hold my attention as much as the earlier ones. Still, it's a lovely chap w/ a lot to like. I esp. enjoy this one, particularly the last half--


It Was a Tenuous Beginning, But it Happened


I wanted to be a drag queen circa 1940,
in a gown I forgot to steam, found dancing

in Paris, enjoying notoriety
among the small and the wild. You wanted

a backyard, a place to decorate,
thick netting beneath us.

But I promised you I wouldn't lose my patience,
so now that you're mine, why would I

let you go? It was a tenuous beginning,
but it happened. And now we draw up

silent lists of things we love and hate; under
the table conversations get us in trouble.

Hip bones like brackets I don't believe.
Closure will be possible.

Hip bones like brackets, I don't believe
closure will be possible.

[Marne Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice chapbook. I liked many of the individual poems, but it didn't seem to me that there was much of a theme connecting them.