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.
Nothing is more helpful to memorizing poetry than walking around while you do it. Actors know this trick. You are memorizing the words on the auditory side of your brain, in muscle memory. People who try to do it sitting down are using the wrong side of their brain. You can do it, but it's harder, and I don't think it sticks as long.
This should be good news for everyone--you can get poetry and exercise at the same time.
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.
One more thing: sometimes a person might love the sense of a poem, and that's a great reason to memorize it, but a person can love the sound, too. I think a lot of people know Coleridge's lines about Xanadu and Kubla Khan and the pleasure-dome and caverns not because they have any idea of what's going on there (I don't) but because the sounds of those words pulls you in, and then descends like a scale to the sunless sea. It's practically a song. My all-time favorite for sheer exotic word magic sound is a not very well known poem by Archibald Macleish called "You, Andrew Marvell." That poem is a symphony orchestra and an oil masterpiece wrapped into ten short stanzas: Ecbatan, Kermanshah, Baghdad, Crete and Sicily, Lebanon, the gilded sand of Africa, "the wheel rut in the ruined stone" - it's been in me for forty years and it still gives me goosebumps. I am very fortunate and grateful to the poet to have it permanently inside me.
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:
Thank you so much for this Henry! I will definitely remember that lovely Ogden Dash forever now!!! I just about know The Adventures of Isabel by him off by heart too as do my children ! After reading John Carey’s autobiography I have learnt the first 10 or so lines of Lepanto and have been quite surprised at how well they’ve stuck but it does take a bit of time. We had to memorise and recite vast amounts of poetry at school (also verse speaking competitions and something called the Poetry Society of something!) I really wish my children were set more!
This is exactly how Anna Akhmatova's poetry was memorized in Soviet Russia, only in the very poor apartments and in very poor clothes, the rest -reciting among friends was the same, although some friends informed the organs, like on Mandelstam, and he perished in camps of the Gulag. Yes, but Akmatova’ s poetry survived in the same manner, and she, the only one, survived also.
I read an essay once by Randall Jarrell in which he talks about discovering by accident while floating in a pond that he loved Robert Frost’s poem “Provide, Provide!” so much that he had memorized it by accident! I was a teenager then and didn’t know the poem, but when I looked it up it worked its magic and - although I had to really work at it - I eventually memorized it too. It’s a crystally poetic diamond. That’s why I think your step #1 is really the tip that matters. Without it, none of the other steps have any power, and with it, they all work together. I memorized “The Walrus and the Carpenter” when I was a child because it was hilarious, and I can still make myself happy with “shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings - and why the sea is boiling hot - and whether pigs have wings.” Provide, Provide if anyone is interested: https://allpoetry.com/Provide,-Provide
Great tips! It used to be so easy to memorize. Much harder now. I still have some oldies but goodies, like The Land of Counterpane and Psalms and Sonnets, and bits and pieces of many others. I'm now inspired to try according to a program.
Loved this!! The tips here really work. I've used them for most of my life... Especially the 'spaced recall', and memorizing while walking or doing home chores. I recently started into Burnt Norton, which is much harder than say Hopkins or Shakespeare, like you pointed out. I've had the part about the Wounded Surgeon, from the Dry Salvages, in my mind for a couple years, so I decided to see how far I could get with the whole Four Quartets...
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!
Nothing is more helpful to memorizing poetry than walking around while you do it. Actors know this trick. You are memorizing the words on the auditory side of your brain, in muscle memory. People who try to do it sitting down are using the wrong side of their brain. You can do it, but it's harder, and I don't think it sticks as long.
This should be good news for everyone--you can get poetry and exercise at the same time.
I did a lot of acting once upon a time so I suppose that’s where I picked up the habit
Hey, I want to say, one of my favorite poems by heart is titled "Three Drunk Poets"...not kidding 😁 I love to run it through my mind when I'm walking.
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.
Turn out Forsyth has a new book due out: Rhyme & Reason: A Short History of Poetry (for People Who Don't Like Poetry).
Great choices two splendid poems
One more thing: sometimes a person might love the sense of a poem, and that's a great reason to memorize it, but a person can love the sound, too. I think a lot of people know Coleridge's lines about Xanadu and Kubla Khan and the pleasure-dome and caverns not because they have any idea of what's going on there (I don't) but because the sounds of those words pulls you in, and then descends like a scale to the sunless sea. It's practically a song. My all-time favorite for sheer exotic word magic sound is a not very well known poem by Archibald Macleish called "You, Andrew Marvell." That poem is a symphony orchestra and an oil masterpiece wrapped into ten short stanzas: Ecbatan, Kermanshah, Baghdad, Crete and Sicily, Lebanon, the gilded sand of Africa, "the wheel rut in the ruined stone" - it's been in me for forty years and it still gives me goosebumps. I am very fortunate and grateful to the poet to have it permanently inside me.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43003/you-andrew-marvell
That's (sorry) marvellous. And the geography might help.
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 :)
My daughter just turned seven and I never thought of doing this with her. A wonderful idea!
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.
Thank you so much for this Henry! I will definitely remember that lovely Ogden Dash forever now!!! I just about know The Adventures of Isabel by him off by heart too as do my children ! After reading John Carey’s autobiography I have learnt the first 10 or so lines of Lepanto and have been quite surprised at how well they’ve stuck but it does take a bit of time. We had to memorise and recite vast amounts of poetry at school (also verse speaking competitions and something called the Poetry Society of something!) I really wish my children were set more!
I learned Ozymandias from the Ted Hughes recording and now doing the voice is half the fun
This is exactly how Anna Akhmatova's poetry was memorized in Soviet Russia, only in the very poor apartments and in very poor clothes, the rest -reciting among friends was the same, although some friends informed the organs, like on Mandelstam, and he perished in camps of the Gulag. Yes, but Akmatova’ s poetry survived in the same manner, and she, the only one, survived also.
Oh how fascinating I didn’t know that thank you
I read an essay once by Randall Jarrell in which he talks about discovering by accident while floating in a pond that he loved Robert Frost’s poem “Provide, Provide!” so much that he had memorized it by accident! I was a teenager then and didn’t know the poem, but when I looked it up it worked its magic and - although I had to really work at it - I eventually memorized it too. It’s a crystally poetic diamond. That’s why I think your step #1 is really the tip that matters. Without it, none of the other steps have any power, and with it, they all work together. I memorized “The Walrus and the Carpenter” when I was a child because it was hilarious, and I can still make myself happy with “shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings - and why the sea is boiling hot - and whether pigs have wings.” Provide, Provide if anyone is interested: https://allpoetry.com/Provide,-Provide
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.
I memorised all Shakespeare's sonnets!
!!
Great tips! It used to be so easy to memorize. Much harder now. I still have some oldies but goodies, like The Land of Counterpane and Psalms and Sonnets, and bits and pieces of many others. I'm now inspired to try according to a program.
How nice that you remember that poem. It described a night that really happened.
Loved this!! The tips here really work. I've used them for most of my life... Especially the 'spaced recall', and memorizing while walking or doing home chores. I recently started into Burnt Norton, which is much harder than say Hopkins or Shakespeare, like you pointed out. I've had the part about the Wounded Surgeon, from the Dry Salvages, in my mind for a couple years, so I decided to see how far I could get with the whole Four Quartets...
Happy Resurrection Sunday!
Great tips, Henry! Thank you