In our second hour today we’re talking with writer Jim Holt about learning poems by heart — and reciting them from memory. Who needs an iPod, he says, when you’ve got great verse running through your head! We’re hoping our listeners, on the air and online, will bring their own favorites to the party. If you have a great poem you want to recite, from memory (no cheating!), then let’s hear it — call in this morning between 11am and noon Eastern, at 1-800-423-8255, and we’ll try to get you on.
And if you have audio and/or video of yourself reciting poetry (again, from memory, not reading off the page!), then post the URL(s) in the comments section for today’s show.
Jim’s recent essay for The New York Times Book Review, “Got Poetry?,” is a good, fun read. He describes the surprising ease, and unique pleasures, of committing poems to memory:
The process of memorizing a poem is fairly mechanical at first. You cling to the meter and rhyme scheme (if there is one), declaiming the lines in a sort of sing-songy way without worrying too much about what they mean. But then something organic starts to happen. Mere memorization gives way to performance. You begin to feel the tension between the abstract meter of the poem — the “duh DA duh DA duh DA duh DA duh DA” of iambic pentameter, say — and the rhythms arising from the actual sense of the words. (Part of the genius of Yeats or Pope is the way they intensify meaning by bucking against the meter.) It’s a physical feeling, and it’s a deeply pleasurable one. You can get something like it by reading the poem out loud off the page, but the sensation is far more powerful when the words come from within. (The act of reading tends to spoil physical pleasure.) It’s the difference between sight-reading a Beethoven piano sonata and playing it from memory — doing the latter, you somehow feel you come closer to channeling the composer’s emotions. And with poetry you don’t need a piano.
He says he hopes to dispel three myths:
Myth No. 1: Poetry is painful to memorize. It is not at all painful. Just do a line or two a day.
Myth No. 2: There isn’t enough room in your memory to store a lot of poetry. Bad analogy. Memory is a muscle, not a quart jar.
Myth No. 3: Everyone needs an iPod. You do not need an iPod. Memorize poetry instead.
Read the full essay here.
I have a great story about a poem by Paul Verlaine that was broadcast by the BBC to the French resistance to signal the start of D-day. Trying to call in from 860 236 3220
Posted by susan Hope, on April 13th, 2009 at 10:57 AMThe one I know by heart is “El Dorado” by Poe.
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o’er his heart a shadow,
Fell as he found,
No spot of ground,
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength,
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?”
“Over the mountains
Posted by LAnce Vargas, on April 14th, 2009 at 11:27 AMOf the moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied,
“If you seek for Eldorado!”
My husband has always had a soft spot for poems and memorizes some classics. So sometimes when we were hiking in the White Mountains or in Western Ireland and we were all alone surrounded by nature he started reciting Yeats or Emily Dickinson … it’s great. Beats any iPod, if you ask me.
Posted by Silke, on April 15th, 2009 at 4:20 PMI enjoy poetry and always loved to read them aloud. Even as early as first grade, I noticed folks in my home town of Calicut, India would stop to listen to me. I still do Shakespeare and haven’t forgotten it even without much practice. My masterpiece is the murder scene from ‘Othello’ which went on air several times. I would love to have a similar opportunity again and I assure you your listeners will not be disappointed
Posted by Yasmin, on April 15th, 2009 at 8:41 PMNobody stopped to do an audio or video. Popping into a comments section in the middle of a show, I guess people don’t read the blurb up top for instructions but go to the end to try to weigh in before the show is over, if that is the objective. Too bad. I would have liked to see what sort of quality of audio and video people offer, then worry about how it is done. You mention URL’s, so maybe it can’t be done without using a personal website.
Posted by Ellen Dibble, on April 16th, 2009 at 3:20 PMEllen: yes, the hope was that some people might have posted audio or video on their personal blogs, and then link to them from the comments section. That’s ok — worth a try.
Posted by Wen Stephenson, on April 16th, 2009 at 3:35 PMI grew up in England with a father who would walk across Shropshire fields with me, reciting poetry. Especially A.E. Housman. But he loved other poets too like Yeats, Rupert Brooke…. My father’s love for his country which had just experienced two World Wars, coupled with his love for the countryside usually gave Housman the head start. I cannot think of a wiser way to foster an interest in poetry than by reciting it to a child whilst exploring nature together. English schools are good at promoting poem memorization and that gives the poems a much longer life in a person’s mind.
As I grew older, the Housman verse which became embedded in my memory was this one:
The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.
(A Shropshire Lad XXIII)
That subtle reference to the early loss of life on a battlefront didn’t so much haunt me growing up, as seed a strong sense of the tragedy coming out of war: it stops a lot of people from living out their lives. And it should be the absolute last option for any country.
It’s a much kinder battle to commit a poem to memory.
My mother and I gave a cup in my father’s name to the Housman Society and it is presented to the winner each year of a student recitation competition. Here in the United States, there is a national poetry recitation event for high school students taking place this very month, on April 28 in Washington DC. The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation have partnered with State Arts Agencies to expand a program called Poetry Out Loud which “encourages the nation’s youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance”. Last year over 200,000 students competed. Hopefully this time next year, this On Point program can take place again, and maybe there’ll be one of those students who calls in.
Posted by Hilary Stookey, on April 16th, 2009 at 4:50 PM[...] [...]
Posted by Rhyme & Meter Online: April 19 2009 « PoemShape, on April 21st, 2009 at 9:13 PM