Poem Analysis

Peter Stavropoulos talks about finding a memory and remembering a feeling in his poem, “.I thought about
you.” Stavropoulos begins his poem with “I though about you And I lost my memory” and says “In time, I
could not remember the loss.” This statement is easy to interpret because Stavropoulos states bluntly that he’s
lost a memory of someone he loves. But it’s important for the reader to notice that Stavropoulos also writes first
of losing a memory but follows by explaining that the memory of losing the previous memory is also loss. This
tells the reader that whatever is causing Stavropoulos to lose his memory is obviously affective and progressing
to later stages seeing how he can’t remember losing a memory. Peter Stavropoulos also writes “In Time” before
he explains that he could not “remember the loss,” this can tell the reader that this memory loss didn’t happen
over a quick period of time but rather a few years. It can be interpreted that Stavropoulos didn’t write this poem
immediately after his lover or friend left but wrote it in result of the aftermath of their departure. This poem can
be thought of as a letter of apology or simply a something that Stavropoulos wished to tell someone dear to his
heart.
In the stanza, it isn’t clearly stated whether or not Stavropoulos is talking about a lover or a former friend but it
is clear that Stavropoulos adds an optimistic statement to the poem. Peter Stavropoulos writes: “And yet In You
I have a memory Of A Happier Time.” By saying this Peter Stavropoulos assures the reader that he has revisited
the memory of this person but is still unhappy about the fact that they left. The reader can tell that Stavropoulos
last line isn’t about a reunion between the poet and whom he writes about but rather an acknowledgement from
the poet that the time spend with this person was not wasted and is cherished until the end of time. The audience
is able to get this message from Stavropoulos because he says that he finds the memory of a happier time “in
you,” as he directs this towards the audience.
Stavropoulos also tends to break up his lines into fragments. This helps the reader relate the fact that he is trying
hard to remember his past. You know that Stavropoulos uses fragmented lines instead of flowing ones because
when someone is trying to remember the past, they usually start remembering the incident in fragments before
they can piece them all together. By using sentence fragments to write this poem, Stavropoulos adds more
emphasis to certain lines and shows the audience that he’s remembered what happened.
Stavropoulos uses frequent stops in each line to add emphasis to certain words. For instance, starting from the
third line, the whole sentence could be read as “In time, I could not remember the loss,” however, Stavropoulos
chooses to break apart “in time,” and “the loss,” to add emphasis to both of these words. Stopping causes the
reader to focus on these words because as they are reading the poem they will read “in time” and “the loss”
separately and realize that the loss that Stavropoulos is talking about is important.
By using the frequent breaks the poem has a symmetrical appearance in words on each line. Each line and its
counterpart from the end of the poem are the opposite of each other. The second line says “And I lost my
memory,” and the second to last line says, “I have a memory.” The third line says “In time,” while the third to
last line says “in you.” By creating this symmetry between the lines, Stavropoulos shows the progression from
himself losing a memory to remembering one. This also shows that the subject of whom Stavropoulos is
referring to has such a great impact on him that by thinking about that subject, he can remember himself again.
Art Analysis
The picture for this poem shows a man thinking about something on one half and a woman thinking about
something on the other half. This is to show that as the author thinks about whoever he’s writing about, he
remembers the memory of that person and finds that that person is a part of himself. Sometimes people refer to
someone they love as their “other half” and this drawing is trying to show that saying, literally, because half of
the man is the woman and half of the woman is the man. The reflection marks are there to show that the man
isn’t near the person he’s thinking about physically but is next to her mentally. Since the poem is about thinking
about someone instead of seeing someone, the mirror is representing the man thinking about himself and seeing
himself but seeing the other person as a part of him.

.I thought about you

I thought about you

And I lost my memory
In time
I could not remember
The loss
And yet
In you
I have a memory
Of A Happier Time

By Peter Stavropoulos