Eruditio ex Memoria

The cover, with an illustration by Bernadette Mayer.

A detail from the cover image.

This associative, diaristic long poem by Bernadette Mayer takes as its source Mayer’s school notebooks and what she finds there (the cover art is also taken from these same notebooks). About this edition of 400 copies, Mayer wrote, “I don't think anybody read it except the publishers and Ted Berrigan. Certainly nobody asked me what it was except of course Ted.”

Bernadette Mayer. Eruditio ex Memoria. New York: Angel Hair Books, 1977.

A page towards the end of the book, which reflects on assumptions made about one's younger self.

A page on medieval European history, moralism and religion, mythology, and math.

A page on Shakespeare, Keats, and classification.