One of my New Year's bingo items last year was to learn a poem by heart, and I managed several in the end. It helps if they rhyme in a fixed pattern, because then often the next few lines suggest themselves once you recall one. The first poem I committed to memory was The Owl and the Pussycat, which was one I was reading to my son a lot anyway.
Thanks for this. I am 81 years old and I began learning and reciting poetry a year or two ago to help with memory. The poems with rhythmic meter and rhyme have definitely been my choices, and will continue to be. Two favourites are Hilaire Belloc’s Tarantella, and one by Housman Oh Who is That Young Sinner. Your suggestion about spacing and intervals is something I have definitely employed.
Very helpful! I'd also add memorizing with someone else. My ten year old and I have memorized 4 in the last few months (well five for him, because I let him read "Red" by Mary Ruefle ONCE and he instantly committed it to memory). We've memorized:
Interesting that you mention "Love Calls Us to the Things of this World." Through rereading, I have inadvertently memorized the beginning and end, but I realized I do not have all the middle. Your excellent post calls me to rectify this situation.
I lived in the countryside for many years and my nearest pub was a twenty-five minute walk away up a hill and through a wood. Often, walking home, I'd recite poems, and Prufrock was a favourite. It kept the badgers company.
Put that conference on repeat, we need far more like it! Currently, I’d suggest three of Frost’s lesser known but in my opinion deepest works: Neither Out Far Nor in Deep, Design and Provide, Provide… the last of which might be called a (current) anthem for doomed youth ? :)
A lovely piece! I agree that the Psalms are wonderful to memorise, too, but I think most readers would be more familiar with Coverdale's psalter (used in the Book of Common Prayer) than the KJV.
One of my New Year's bingo items last year was to learn a poem by heart, and I managed several in the end. It helps if they rhyme in a fixed pattern, because then often the next few lines suggest themselves once you recall one. The first poem I committed to memory was The Owl and the Pussycat, which was one I was reading to my son a lot anyway.
Excellent choice!
Thanks for this. I am 81 years old and I began learning and reciting poetry a year or two ago to help with memory. The poems with rhythmic meter and rhyme have definitely been my choices, and will continue to be. Two favourites are Hilaire Belloc’s Tarantella, and one by Housman Oh Who is That Young Sinner. Your suggestion about spacing and intervals is something I have definitely employed.
Great choices two splendid poems
Wonderful, and timely for me!
Thank you Henry.
Very helpful! I'd also add memorizing with someone else. My ten year old and I have memorized 4 in the last few months (well five for him, because I let him read "Red" by Mary Ruefle ONCE and he instantly committed it to memory). We've memorized:
The Red Wheel Barrow - WCW
First Fig - Edna St. Vincent Millay
Today - Frank O'Hara
Becoming Moss - Ella Frears
We'll get to a sonnet eventually!
How lovely :)
Also, start early. Learn as many poems as you can by early adolescence, they never fade. Then, they are formative of both knowledge and character.
With Frost, I find that the rhythm of everyday speech which carries the homespun sense in his poetry is what makes it memorable, and memorisable.
Interesting that you mention "Love Calls Us to the Things of this World." Through rereading, I have inadvertently memorized the beginning and end, but I realized I do not have all the middle. Your excellent post calls me to rectify this situation.
Or just pick your favourite lines from Prufrock—”I am old, I am old,/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
'I grow old . . . I grow old . . .'
whoops
I lived in the countryside for many years and my nearest pub was a twenty-five minute walk away up a hill and through a wood. Often, walking home, I'd recite poems, and Prufrock was a favourite. It kept the badgers company.
I was astonished at a political conference last year when a group of politicos recited the whole thing together it was amazing
Put that conference on repeat, we need far more like it! Currently, I’d suggest three of Frost’s lesser known but in my opinion deepest works: Neither Out Far Nor in Deep, Design and Provide, Provide… the last of which might be called a (current) anthem for doomed youth ? :)
Provide provide is one of my faves great poem
A lovely piece! I agree that the Psalms are wonderful to memorise, too, but I think most readers would be more familiar with Coverdale's psalter (used in the Book of Common Prayer) than the KJV.