As the poem’s title suggests, one of the main themes of “Mementos, 1” is the power seemingly small but personally significant items can hold for recalling the past. The poem is centered on the photograph the speaker finds, and this photograph serves as a framing device for the recollection and unfolding of his memories of his former wife and the war. The inclusion of the number 1 in the poem’s title suggests this is the first memento the speaker ever received in relation to his wife while also suggesting that it may also still rank first for him in emotional weight and importance.

As the poem unfolds, the speaker reveals how the photograph changes meaning depending on the memory he associates with it. When he first rediscovers the photograph, it serves as a memento of meeting his wife at “our first dance” (Line 10), and his instinctive reaction is one of happiness and fondness, as he admits, “[T]hat first second, I was glad” to have found the photograph again (Line 7). The photograph thus momentarily transports him back to an earlier stage of his life and rekindles the memory, inspiring not only an intellectual recollection of the

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