Can you summarize Adrienne Rich's poem, "Amnesia"?

Adrienne Rich's poem, "Amnesia" uses references to the 1941 movie, Citizen Kane to provide focus for her poem.

Citizen Kane is about a once-powerful and rich man who dies, clutching a snow-globe with a likeness of his home, whispering the word "Rosebud." After his death—and told in flashbacks—a newsreel reporter searches to find the meaning of "Rosebud," and for the real man behind the public façade. We learn that at a young age, Kane's poverty-ridden parents suddenly come into enormous wealth, and his mother ships him off to be raised by Thatcher, her banker. This seems to have been a devastating event in Kane's young life: losing his innocence in being separated from family, and later, losing his idealism. (At one time he wanted to use his power and wealth to help those who had no public voice.)

Ultimately locked in the grip of wealth and power, Kane loses his dreams, his second wife (his true love), his reputation, and all he owns. His death, which begins the film, brings "Rosebud" to the forefront of the viewer's mind. Not until the end of the movie does the audience learn that it is the name that was painted on his sled—the sled he was on when Thatcher came to take him away. This is central to Kane's inner-self: his loss of connection to his family— those he loved.

Note now the beginning of the poem: "I almost trust myself to know…" She does not quite trust herself yet. She mentions the movie scene with the snow-globe. She notes the "mother handing over her son." "The earliest American dream" may refer to that mother wanting for her son what she never had. It is, however, the mother's dream, not the son's. Rich refers to the old "black-and-white" movie that shows "incandescent" snowflakes—bright, glowing, larger than life—reaching into the "cold blur" of the past. Two things to note: the "black-and-white" may allude to the idea of youth—these two colors being associated with the absolutes...when one is young, and before "greys" make life so difficult. Second, the past is "cold," not warm and welcoming.

"But first" indicates Rich's shift in focus. The "picture of the past" could refer to movie or a snapshot, not in color (an old picture). The picture—simple as it is—Rich compares to the "pitiless…deed" of "the putting-away of a childish thing," alluding to the Bible verse, I Corinthians 13:11: that speaks of becoming a man. Rich must carry pain about this "putting-away" because she associates it with leaving:

Becoming a man means leaving
someone, or something—

The leaving at the poem's end echoes Kane's mother sending him away in the movie. The snow mentioned in the poem at this point is blocking out what is left behind—it would seem that Rich changes the perspective from Kane looking into the globe remembering the loss of his home and family (and perhaps himself), trying to see his past through the snow…to the speaker, the one who is left behind—looking out of the globe, through the same snow, as she watches the "becoming-a-man" leave her. The snow of the globe blots out the sight of the one who looks back on leaving, as well as it diminishes the sight of the one who is left behind when the other leaves.

The "picture of the past" does not indicate when this happened, but it would seem that Rich has not forgotten: her amnesia is not quite complete. And if "we're getting to the scene," the speaker may be remembering the first parting, and looking now to another similar parting, where she is once again left behind.

Rich's poem "Amnesia" expresses the feminist viepoint that history erased from collective memory the role and identiy of women throughout time. Rich asserts this was done by removing and/or not including documentation of women's contributions to culture, society, and history. Although, some women of extraordinary renown, like Madame Curie, are included in the documents of history. Rich expresses this ideology in her essay "Resisting Amnesia: History and Personal Life."

One of Rich's feminist theses is that historical amnesia has robbed women of the ability to "create things differently." As she writes in Ana Historic:

they took your imagination, your will to create things differently

The story elaborates upon this further when Rich writes that this omission of women's roles and contributions has overloaded collective feminine cognition so none can bear to remember the past:

under the role or robe was no one ... they erased whole parts of you, shocked them out, overloaded the circuits so you couldn't bear to remember

These ideas, (1) stolen imagination and creativity and (2) an intolerance for remembering are echoed in the end of "Amnesia":

still, why
must the snow-scene blot itself out
the flakes come down so fast
so heavy, so unrevealing
over the something that gets left behind?

One of Rich's central points is that feminists need to be looking for the resistance from women throughout history that maintained a continuity to the survival of women's imagination:

to be looking ... for the greatness and sanity of ordinary women, [who] collectively waged resistance ... better than individual heroines ... [for] continuity of women's imagination of survival, .... ("Resisting Amnesia")

This feminist idea of a collectively waged resistance is hinted at in "Amnesia" when the poetic speaker says:

every flake of snow
[...]
adding-
up, always adding-up to the
cold blur of the past   
But first there is the picture of the past
simple and pitiless ...

Interpret Adrienne Rich's poem "Amnesia."

The first thing needed for understanding "Amnesia" is a thorough understanding of the literary allusion to the Orson Wells film Citizen Kane. A literary allusion is a reference to literature, mythology, film, legend, historical moments or periods, famous individuals, etc., as a means of developing a complex idea in one brief reference.

For instance, if I say to you that my friend is a real Adam Sandler, you immediately conjure up an understanding of what Sandler is like and apply that image to my friend. This gives you a deeper understanding of what my friend is like than if I merely said, "Oh, he's a funny guy, all right." Allusions develop a deeper understanding of a person, event, place, or situation more clearly and more quickly than an ordinary remark can do.

Citizen Kane is about a man whose life changed when sent to live with another family in his childhood. He left important parts of his early life behind. He ultimately became successful but psychologically tormented. The end of the movie reveals that his inner torment stemmed from having left his snow sled called Rosebud behind on that cold, snow-covered, snow-spilling winter day when he was separated from his life and family--and Rosebud.

Applying this summary of Citizen Kane to "Amnesia,"

I almost trust myself to know
when we're getting to that scene [in the movie]—
call it the snow-scene in Citizen Kane:

gives you an understanding of the premise of and the implied metaphor for the poem: there was a great moment of loss and separation in the life of the poetic speaker. [According to the norms of poetry, the poetic speaker may or may not be the poet Rich.]

The allusion is carried beyond this, though, and into the meaning of the title: "Amnesia." The allusion draws on a visual scene from the film and speaks of the curtain of snow that was falling over the boy who was being handed over to strangers while outdoors playing in the snowfall with Rosebud:

Becoming a man means leaving
someone, or something—
still, why
must the snow-scene blot itself out
the flakes come down so fast
so heavy, so unrevealing
over the something that gets left behind?

When the import of the allusion is applied to the poem, you can understand that, in the poetic speaker's memory, there is a falling shroud of veil covering the thing that was left behind. In other words, the Rosebud of the speaker's life is veiled over, is blotted out, by forgetfullness (amnesia) in the same way that the film scene is veiled over by falling snow,

where every flake of snow
is ... / its own burden, adding-
up, always adding-up to the
cold blur of the past

The interpretation of "Amnesia," then, has two central parts. The first is that growing up involves a "simple and pitiless ... / ... putting away of a childish thing"--a childish thing metaphorically represented by the sled called Rosebud of the film allusion.

The second part is that memory sends metaphorical snow-flakes falling over the memory of "someone, or something" left behind. The question is, "still, why / must the snow-scene blot" out "so unrevealingly" the memory of "the something that gets left behind?". The metaphors of Citizen Kane and Rosebud imply that the "someone, or something" left behind may be oneself or part of oneself because oneself is what one loves most.