The Colour out of Space 3-Meeting
parrot memory...
Have you encountered the poetic writing of H.P. Lovecraft?
Lovecraft penned The Colour out of Space in 1927. The story is image-rich and lyrical.
It’s a perfect story to turn into a graphic novel. (Thanks to Sara Barkat for doing that!)
Here is a peek at the tale:
It was then that I heard the story, and as the rambling voice scraped and whispered on I shivered again and again despite the summer day. Often I had to recall the speaker from ramblings, piece out scientific points which he knew only by a fading parrot memory of professors’ talk, or bridge over gaps, where his sense of logic and continuity broke down. When he was done I did not wonder that his mind had snapped a trifle, or that the folk of Arkham would not speak much of the blasted heath. I hurried back before sunset to my hotel, unwilling to have the stars come out above me in the open; and the next day returned to Boston to give up my position.
Free Discussion Guide—Enjoy!
Prompt 3
Write a poem that plays with the concept of memory. Give it a name if you like, as Lovecraft called his character’s memory a “parrot memory.”
Try a haunting form like the pantoum, which gives a sense of circular experience yet also creates a profound and particular sense.
Or make your memory poem feel like a series of impressions, the way memories often piece themselves together in dreams or in quiet moments of solitude.
Sample Poem
Sparrow Memory
The way in autumn
sparrows
scatter seed
beneath wild flowers
gone bronze in leaf
I keep some
of what I found
with you
let go of
diamond, pearl husks
what rolls (or wants
to roll)
away.
I touch wings
with day’s
last light
and call it
new.
***
You can read a Colour out of Space summary, here. And more about The Colour out of Space Graphic Novel, here. What is cosmic horror? Find out.