Please summarize/interpret 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:

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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.