As a musician, it has always been the case that I would memorize songs and not poems, but even then I find I am memorizing melodies, forms, chord changes (meaning, for non-musicians, the harmonic sequences of the music), and not lyrics, which I would sometimes only vaguely know, if it all. This is meant to allow non-singing musicians to get through the gig, but it is ultimately a hollow approach, as it does not fully respect the songs or songwriters. And, as I have been many times reminded by admired musicians, this approach does not allow a musician to fully realize the song, because it leaves out critical intellectual/emotional components — even if the performance doesn't include the sung vocal, it should still respect and be informed by the full meaning. I'm lately trying to re-learn songs I once knew, and will work harder at memorizing the lyrics, too. It seems the right thing to do.
thank you for recognizing the importance of memory and its inclusion of words we love: the skill of memorization is being removed from our daily lives bit by bit as we allow the iCloud to drift in and store what we love and cared for. Considering a lost phone and its only link to find and contact our loved ones is a prompt for basic memorization, but how many of us even know 9 numbers in a row? and memory is banked and accessible from the internet et al. so why cloud my brain with stuff that I can get to anytime anyplace anyhow? taxing my brain and distracting me from my busy world of doing ...
I vividly recall wheeling grandmother past a plastic bouquet of daffodils and her reciting from Wordsworth at age 94+ the poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud! Much more positive than Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening that one of my kids memorized for grade school. Makes me wonder is it easier to memorize certain types of poetry over others?
Meter and especially rhyme almost certainly makes for the type of poetry that is easier to memorize. It isn't uncommon to get lines of rhymed poetry stuck in your head without consciously willing it to be so.
Bravo Henry! Especially delighted that it's Wordsworth here. I just started memorizing "To Autumn" by Keats... oof...t's much harder to memorize in your 60s than it was ...well...before 60! But I've got the first 6 lines down. I say them first thing in the morning and throughout the day, and I'm going to keep adding lines. It's lovely to begin the day with, 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...'
I memorized "Bright Star" years ago...have you seen the Jane Campion film!? it is phenomenal. Also love "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" - that's my next one.
Memorising poetry seems to me a vital life skill not least because of the solace offered when such things are brought to mind. I can still remember a poem I memorised at school when I was 8 - Walter de la Mare’s ‘The Fly’ -
‘How large unto a tiny fly must little things appear
A rosebud like a feather bed, a prickle like a spear’ etc.
My two careers as professional opera and concert singer and teacher of English have given me ample opportunity to memorise a wide range of poetry. I know Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ by heart largely because I sang a setting by Welsh composer Grace Williams for a BBC recital in 1976. As to whether some poems are easier to memorise than others, I have quite a lot of Robert Frost in my repertoire (I like to think, almost certainly erroneously, that I do a good imitation of him reciting ‘Stopping by Woods’…)
A couple of meta-poetic references:
A Plea to Boys and Girls
You learned Lear’s Nonsense Rhymes by heart, not rote;
You learned Pope’s Iliad by rote, not heart;
These terms should be distinguished if you quote
My verses, children — keep them poles apart —
And call the man a liar who says I wrote
All that I wrote in love, for love of art.
Robert Graves
Miracle On St David’s Day
All you need to know about this poem is that it is a true story. It happened in the ’70s, and it took me years to find a way to write the poem.
‘They flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude’
(from ‘The Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth)
An afternoon yellow and open-mouthed
with daffodils. The sun treads the path among cedars and enormous oaks.
my wife does it--get poems they like is the key thing, make it an activity (like a read aloud poetry tea), and maybe pay them 10c per line or similar to learn a decent poem
The only one of Wordsworth I know by heart is “ My Heart Leaps Up” with of course its legendary line’; ‘the child is father of the man’. Of comparable length so easily memorisable. Very poignant for me now at soixante-dix ans. 🥲
Really well done! Thanks for sharing this! I'm working on Herbert now; I've done Easter Wings as probably the easiest one, and Nature (Full of rebellion, I would die) and probably working on the Altar next and then the two 'Christmas' ones. So worth it ❤️
What a poignant reminder of civilization, and yet into my 12th Anthony Trollope novel for the summer, I can’t see that it made mankind any wiser or more peaceful in their lives. The one thing that does seem to help over time is a sense of humor.
As a musician, it has always been the case that I would memorize songs and not poems, but even then I find I am memorizing melodies, forms, chord changes (meaning, for non-musicians, the harmonic sequences of the music), and not lyrics, which I would sometimes only vaguely know, if it all. This is meant to allow non-singing musicians to get through the gig, but it is ultimately a hollow approach, as it does not fully respect the songs or songwriters. And, as I have been many times reminded by admired musicians, this approach does not allow a musician to fully realize the song, because it leaves out critical intellectual/emotional components — even if the performance doesn't include the sung vocal, it should still respect and be informed by the full meaning. I'm lately trying to re-learn songs I once knew, and will work harder at memorizing the lyrics, too. It seems the right thing to do.
Excellent! Let us know how you get on!
thank you for recognizing the importance of memory and its inclusion of words we love: the skill of memorization is being removed from our daily lives bit by bit as we allow the iCloud to drift in and store what we love and cared for. Considering a lost phone and its only link to find and contact our loved ones is a prompt for basic memorization, but how many of us even know 9 numbers in a row? and memory is banked and accessible from the internet et al. so why cloud my brain with stuff that I can get to anytime anyplace anyhow? taxing my brain and distracting me from my busy world of doing ...
I vividly recall wheeling grandmother past a plastic bouquet of daffodils and her reciting from Wordsworth at age 94+ the poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud! Much more positive than Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening that one of my kids memorized for grade school. Makes me wonder is it easier to memorize certain types of poetry over others?
Meter and especially rhyme almost certainly makes for the type of poetry that is easier to memorize. It isn't uncommon to get lines of rhymed poetry stuck in your head without consciously willing it to be so.
a lovely memory
Bravo Henry! Especially delighted that it's Wordsworth here. I just started memorizing "To Autumn" by Keats... oof...t's much harder to memorize in your 60s than it was ...well...before 60! But I've got the first 6 lines down. I say them first thing in the morning and throughout the day, and I'm going to keep adding lines. It's lovely to begin the day with, 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...'
such a great poem, I used to know some Keats but not that one
I memorized "Bright Star" years ago...have you seen the Jane Campion film!? it is phenomenal. Also love "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" - that's my next one.
One technique I heard 20+ or 40 years ago- start with the last lines. I guess you then know it backwards and forward- ha
I might try this...
Well played again, Henry
I can recite the opening of To A Butterfly by Wordsworth. I might task myself with memorising it all.
Its almost too beautiful and sad.
You recited this wonderfully.
Than you :) I hope you do memorise it and then tell us!
Memorising poetry seems to me a vital life skill not least because of the solace offered when such things are brought to mind. I can still remember a poem I memorised at school when I was 8 - Walter de la Mare’s ‘The Fly’ -
‘How large unto a tiny fly must little things appear
A rosebud like a feather bed, a prickle like a spear’ etc.
My two careers as professional opera and concert singer and teacher of English have given me ample opportunity to memorise a wide range of poetry. I know Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ by heart largely because I sang a setting by Welsh composer Grace Williams for a BBC recital in 1976. As to whether some poems are easier to memorise than others, I have quite a lot of Robert Frost in my repertoire (I like to think, almost certainly erroneously, that I do a good imitation of him reciting ‘Stopping by Woods’…)
A couple of meta-poetic references:
A Plea to Boys and Girls
You learned Lear’s Nonsense Rhymes by heart, not rote;
You learned Pope’s Iliad by rote, not heart;
These terms should be distinguished if you quote
My verses, children — keep them poles apart —
And call the man a liar who says I wrote
All that I wrote in love, for love of art.
Robert Graves
Miracle On St David’s Day
All you need to know about this poem is that it is a true story. It happened in the ’70s, and it took me years to find a way to write the poem.
‘They flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude’
(from ‘The Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth)
An afternoon yellow and open-mouthed
with daffodils. The sun treads the path among cedars and enormous oaks.
It might be a country house, guests strolling,
the rumps of gardeners between nursery shrubs.
I am reading poetry to the insane.
An old woman, interrupting, offers
as many buckets of coal as I need.
A beautiful chestnut-haired boy listens
entirely absorbed. A schizophrenic
on a good day, they tell me later.
In a cage of first March sun a woman
sits not listening, not feeling.
In her neat clothes the woman is absent.
A big, mild man is tenderly led
to his chair. He has never spoken.
His labourer’s hands on his knees, he rocks
gently to the rhythms of the poems.
I read to their presences, absences,
to the big, dumb labouring man as he rocks.
He is suddenly standing, silently,
huge and mild, but I feel afraid. Like slow
movement of spring water or the first bird
of the year in the breaking darkness,
the labourer’s voice recites ‘The Daffodils’.
The nurses are frozen, alert; the patients
seem to listen. He is hoarse but word-perfect.
Outside the daffodils are still as wax,
a thousand, ten thousand, their syllables
unspoken, their creams and yellows still.
Forty years ago, in a Valleys school,
the class recited poetry by rote.
Since the dumbness of misery fell
he has remembered there was a music
of speech and that once he had something to say.
When he’s done, before the applause, we observe
the flowers’ silence. A thrush sings
and the daffodils are flame.
Gillian Clarke
Lovely to see another of these. I, too, have let my project of poetry memorization slip. I am inspired to resume.
yes! do it! then we will both feel accountable!
Henry do you teach your kids to memorize poetry? I’d like to instill that in my kids while they’re young but not sure how to begin.
my wife does it--get poems they like is the key thing, make it an activity (like a read aloud poetry tea), and maybe pay them 10c per line or similar to learn a decent poem
What a lovely thing to do. I would say the poem along with them. Walk around the house saying it. They'll have it forever, in your voice, too.
The only one of Wordsworth I know by heart is “ My Heart Leaps Up” with of course its legendary line’; ‘the child is father of the man’. Of comparable length so easily memorisable. Very poignant for me now at soixante-dix ans. 🥲
The poem seems kin to John Crowe Ransom’s “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter”.
Thank you for the reference. I shall seek the poem out.
same!
thanks will look it up
Loved this Henry! I have a few memorized. The oldest are the easiest to remember. I am working on more :)
Really well done! Thanks for sharing this! I'm working on Herbert now; I've done Easter Wings as probably the easiest one, and Nature (Full of rebellion, I would die) and probably working on the Altar next and then the two 'Christmas' ones. So worth it ❤️
Thanks! And nice going!
What a poignant reminder of civilization, and yet into my 12th Anthony Trollope novel for the summer, I can’t see that it made mankind any wiser or more peaceful in their lives. The one thing that does seem to help over time is a sense of humor.
I enjoy these recitations, and find them fascinating.
I often paint from memory. Degas was a champion of the approach. At their neurobiological core, the processes are highly similar.
It's been said that the history of painting is painters talking to each other through the centuries. Echos.
Also, I think John Cage would have appreciated the sound of the air vent.
Penetrating. I had to discern when to shift from the first person to the second. Or third.