Memory is the raw material of my work. I found my voice in writing of my
butcher father slaughtering poultry at his market, my grandparents
harassing each other over gin rummy in their living room, a boyhood walk
on the beach in the eye of a hurricane. I could know who I was because I
knew who and where I’d been. I could find a story, give form to my
experience. But now, without reliable memory, I’m a composer with notes
but no melody, a sculptor with nothing but crumbled medium. A quarter
century ago, in the aftermath of a viral attack that targeted my brain, I
had to relearn how to make sense on the page.
- Floyd Skloot
descensus Averno facilis est